


First Attempts at Second Chances

by paramorebrighter



Category: Castle
Genre: Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Family, NSFW, Romance, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 18:03:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paramorebrighter/pseuds/paramorebrighter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexis gets a job baby-sitting part-time for an attractive Southern daddy with an equally adorable little girl. How long before the undeniable sparks ignite?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1st Attempts to Meet Someone

**Author's Note:**

> Sexual content included.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does.

Alexis was not looking forward to the dish she was expected to bring to Sunday brunch with her father and stepmother. She had to find creole mustard, if that was even a thing. She was going up and down the mustard aisle of the supermarket, wondering why she was missing it.

She heard a crash of glass and a gasp from a tiny mouth.

“Uh-oh.”

“Scar, did we just have an uh-oh?” a male voice asked.

“Um… yes, Daddy, we did.”

Alexis looked through the shelves to see a little girl with black hair standing over a shattered mess of what must have used to be a jelly jar. She had had a cute accent, it wasn’t quite the New York accent she was used to. A tall, thin man with a mop of black hair came over to her, he had his back to Alexis. “Come on, we’ve gotta go tell the lady that we broke something.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah, uh-oh.”

He had a Southern accent. She didn’t hear those too often up here in New York. He picked up the little girl, balancing her on one side, and holding the basket on the other. The two went to find a sales clerk for the store. She smiled to herself; it was kind of cute to see a daddy out with his daughter. It reminded her of growing up with her own father. She wandered down the aisle again, looking for the creole mustard. Damnit, maybe it was time to change recipes.

“ Clean up on aisle 5, ” the overhead speaker said.

Alexis smirked to herself and went to try to find the other ingredients for Eggs Benedict, hoping she’d spot the Creole Mustard somewhere. She went to reach for the carton of eggs, and bumped hands with a stranger.

“‘Scuse me.”

She turned to see that same man who had been in aisle 5 when the little girl broke the jelly jar. He was actually pretty handsome and had the darkest blue eyes she had ever seen. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, completely unlike her New York upbringing.

“Hi, I’m Scarlett,” the little girl at his side said. He was holding her hand and she looked up at Alexis. She had her father’s blue eyes and dark hair, and was perfectly adorable. It was even cuter that she couldn’t pronounce her L’s and R’s correctly; they sounded like W’s almost. When she introduced herself, she said her own name as  Scahr-wet .

“Hi,” Alexis said.

“What’s your name?”

“Sweetpea, don’t go talking to strangers,” the man said. “This is big city.”

“Are you new to town?” Alexis asked him.

“Yeah, pretty new,” he admitted. “We’re trying to get supplies. Nobody cooks in their own apartment here.”

“Ha, yeah. We’re a dining-out-only kind of city,” Alexis admitted, batting her eyelashes. She realized she was flirting, and blushed. 

“Daddy, don’t talk to her, we don’t know her!” Scarlett said. “You just told me not to!”

“Honey,” he laughed. “Man, they’re little recording devices sometimes. Hi, I’m Ben Haversham.”

“Hi, I’m Alexis,” she said, extending a hand to him. He took it to shake it.

“Nice to meet you,” Ben said. “So see, sweetheart, we’re not strangers anymore, so we can talk to her. Together.”

“Okay,” she said.

“How old are you, Scarlett?”

“Three. Almost four!” She held up three fingers, one of which had a plastic daisy ring on it.

“Oh, you’re a big girl!” Alexis cried. “I like your ring! Where’d you get it?”

“I got it at school.”   
“Yeah, she made it the whole day,” Ben said. 

“Good for her,” Alexis said. “Well… if you want the last carton of eggs…”

“Oh, we’ve got eggs, I just wanted to stock up,” he said. “You take it.”

“Okay,” she said gently, picking it up. “Thank you. See you around.”

She started back towards the main part of the store to see if she could find the creole mustard anywhere and finally found it in the gourmet foreign foods aisle.  Crap, why was it there? she sighed.

Ben and Scarlett were finishing up at the express checkout, and Alexis saw them put up a sign on the community message board before leaving. She waved good-bye to them and paid. She wanted to see what the message about once her items were bagged: evening babysitter needed. There was a phone number attached to the advert, and Alexis took one. Dad was always on her case about getting a job outside of school, saying it would keep her from becoming a person with affluenza. She stepped on something on her way out: a daisy ring.

Scarlett must have dropped it. She ran outside the store to see if she could catch Ben and Scarlett before they were gone, and saw them just in time, right as he hailed a cab.

“Wait!” she called. “Scarlett, you dropped this!”

* * *

“I lost my wring!” Scarlett complained as Ben managed to hail a cab. This was not an easy adjustment for them, moving from Nashville; namely, it was useless to use his truck that was parked in the basement of their apartment building, which made grocery shopping a tactical maneuver. Scar was a picky eater and didn’t like a lot of the deli and take-out food that most New Yorkers seemed to survive on.

“Well, sweetpea, you’ve gotta be more careful with your things,” Ben told her, not wanting to give up this cab and go search for the lost item.

“But Daddy, it’s impor-tant!”

“Scar,” he sighed. He didn’t want to be the douchebag dad that yelled when frustrated, and she was getting him frustrated.

“Scarlett, you dropped this!” a woman shouted from behind them.

He turned around to see Alexis standing there, a brown paper sack in her arm, and she was holding up the plastic daisy ring. He sighed in relief. Scarlett wriggled out of the backseat of the cab and ran up to Alexis.

“Thank you,” he said to Alexis. “Scar, what do you say?”

“Tank you,” Scarlett said. 

“Was that your ‘baby-sitter needed’ post on the corkboard?” Alexis asked.

“Hey, buddy, let’s go!” the cabbie shouted.

“Yeah, it was,” Ben said. “I’ve gotta go. If you’re interested, call me. We’ve gotta run. Scarlett, get in the cab.”

Scarlett listened to her father, for once, and climbed in, and Ben was able to give his address in the West Village to the cabbie.

“Bye!” Alexis called as the cab pulled away.

“Bye!” Scarlett shouted, waving at the window at the pretty redhead.

“You got lucky,” Ben said to Scarlett. 

“I did?”

“Yeah, if you want to hold onto that, we’ll need to keep it in your room. You can’t wear it out, okay?”

She whined.

Ben had twenty pages of copy edits to finish before tomorrow and a giant load of laundry. He tried to do educational things with Scarlett on the weekends, but he also had to provide a roof over her head. She’d be stuck watching some  Doctor Who  and playing with her toys. It would have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe some reading tonight after her bath.

The taxi pulled up to their building and Ben unloaded the grocery sack and Scarlett by default.

Their building had a few college students in it, but mostly older downtown residents. There was a front doorman, whom they walked past with a wave and a hello, and went on to the elevator bank.

“Which one’s the up button, sweetpea?” Ben asked her.

“Dis one!” Scarlett cried, pointing at the up-pointing arrow.

“Good, that’s the one! Push it for me!” She hit the up button proudly. “That’s a good girl.”

“I got it!” 

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. 

Things were getting better all the time.


	2. 1st Attempts at Baby-sitting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does.

Alexis had called and left a message on the machine for the baby-sitting job. Ben’s full name was Benjamin Haversham, according to the voicemail, and he was an adjunct professor at NYU and the New School. He listed his office hours, and Alexis considered that if he didn’t  answer her call within three days, she’d stop by to try to talk him into it. Otherwise, she was serving coffee at the University Center’s Starbucks, a job she did not want to repeat after last fall.

“I think I got this right,” she admitted over the stove, whisking the hollandaise sauce.

“I think I like this, Sunday brunch where we don’t have to cook anything,” her father said, pouring a fresh cup of coffee while watching her.

“Don’t forget, you and Kate get the dishes,” she added.

“How goes the job hunt?” Kate asked, taking a seat at the counter. Castle held up the coffee carafe and raised his eyebrows at her. She extended her cup for a refill. 

“I got a new lead, it’s a baby-sitting job,” Alexis said.

“Baby-sitting?” Castle repeated, his upper lip curling. “Alexis, that’s not always that consistent of a job.”

“It might be,” Alexis said. “I met this father in the grocery store last night and I saw him put up an add on the corkboard for baby-sitter-”

“Yeah, a job on a corkboard…”

“Well, that’s how I got my first baby-sitting jobs,” Kate offered. “The community bulletin board in the laundry room in our building. Hey, it’s work. The two of you agreed she needed to get a job while in school.”

“Yeah, it’s a job,” Martha added in, while Alexis carefully pouring the hollandaise sauce onto the english muffins. “That looks delicious, darling.”

“Mmm, eggs benedict,” Jim added in, walking in the door.

“What I had to do to find the ingredients,” Alexis said, rolling her eyes.

Alexis had had a stressful summer when her father disappeared. Internships that would get her ahead had gone by the wayside. She was still recovering from the terror of his disappearance and still suffering from nightmares from her kidnapping. She was not quite ready to go into the fast-paced high-stress world of internships.

They tucked into brunch as a family.

Afterwards, while Alexis went up to her room to prepare for a test that was happening on Tuesday, when her phone rang. The number on the caller ID was a 615 number.

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak with Alexis Castle?”

“Hi, this is she.”

“This is Ben Haversham calling you back. I met you at the store, didn’t I?”

“Yes, I think you did,” she said.

“I‘m glad you called. So far, I’ve just gotten some morons calling me and leaving gross messages. I think you’re the only serious one.”

“Oh, good!” she laughed. “What kind of hours are we talking about?”

“Well, during the day, Scarlett goes to preschool and I work at NYU’s English department. I pick her up around 3, but I’ve been asked by the New School to teach an evening class in creative writing two nights a week. I need somebody to stay with her on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And sometimes, things pop up during the week, and I need someone to watch her. I’ve got a neighbor who I can run to in a pinch, but I don’t like taking advantage of her.”

“Well, I’ve mostly got morning classes, only one in the afternoons on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but I’m free after three. I’m mostly free at night and on the weekends. What’s the pay?”

He sighed. “Well… I can do ten dollars and hour. It’s not a lot, I admit. Are you up for it? Is it worth your time?”

Alexis thought about it. Her father was paying for everything, he just wanted her to be responsible for something other than school for once. The pay was just an extra. “I can do it for that amount.”

“Why don’t I let you stay with her this Tuesday?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll let you start this Tuesday and we can try it out.”

“Alright. Does she have any allergies?”

“Don’t worry about the allergies as much as how picky she is as an eater. What’s your email?”

“Here, it’s this:” she gave her Columbia email. 

“I’ll email you all the little stuff,” he said. “Like what she won’t eat, what to do if she disobeys, our emergency numbers.”

“Okay.”

“Great. So we’re in business. I’ll see you Tuesday at 4.”

“Alright, see you then!”

Alexis hung up and ran downstairs to see her parents, who were finishing up with cleaning up the kitchen. “Guess who’s got a job,” she sang out.

“What? When?” Castle asked, surprised.

“The dad I met in the grocery store called me back, and we’re going to have a trial run baby-sitting his daughter on Tuesday while he’s teaching creative writing at the New School. They live in the West Village.”

“Wait a second, Alexis,” Castle said. “Is it really wise to go to a man’s apartment that you don’t really know?”

“I gave her some mace and taught her a few self-defense moves, she should be fine,” Kate said.

“I’ll be fine, Dad,” she said. “Promise.”

“Wait a second, you said he’s teaching creative writing at the New School? Who is he, again?”

“Benjamin Haversham? He’s also an adjunct professor at NYU.”

“I know that name,” Kate muttered.

Castle stopped drying dishes for a moment to think. “I know his name. He’s published through Penguin.”

“He is?” Alexis cried. “Cool! I didn’t think to Google him!” She went to run back upstairs.

“Wait a second!” Castle cried, and she stopped.

“What?”

“He’s not from around here, I don’t know him that well.”

“So he doesn’t play poker with you and Dennis LaHane and Jim Patterson. Big deal, I think he’s new in town.”

Castle got out his phone and began searching Ben Haversham. “Yup. His website still says that he lives in Nashville. He needs to get that updated.”

“Well, while you do research and try to control my life, I’m going to get ready for my test in Western Civ on Tuesday.”

 

* * *

Tuesday afternoon, Ben picked up Scarlett from school. “Daddy!” Scarlett cried, running for him to pick her up for a hug. “Guess what? I made a friend!”

Her accent alone melted his heart. “Who was it?”

“His name is Owen,” she said. “He has a baby brother.”

“Oh yeah?”

“How do you get a baby brother?”

“That’s a question I”m not ready to answer, sweetpea,” he said, putting her down to take her hand. “So for now, we’ll say the stork.”

They took the subway to their apartment and Ben got her situated in the breakfast nook, coloring with a snack of graham crackers and a quartered apple with some juice, while he put together a quiche from his mother’s recipe box for Alexis to put into the oven around five-thirty. Quiche without onions was one thing he could get her to eat.

by four, the doorman called up.

“Hi, Alexis Castle is here?”

“Let her up,” Ben said, hanging up the phone. They hadn’t quite adjusted to having a doorman in the apartment. He opened the door to their living room and went back to packing up his laptop for the presentation tonight. It was his first time teaching for the New School, and he wanted to be early.

“Daddy?” Scarlett asked. “ Doctor Who ’s over.”

“Do you want to watch some more?” he asked, picking up the remote.

“No, I wanna go to McDonald’s.”

“What? Why McDonald’s?”

“The ice cream cone?”   
There was a knock on the door. “Hi,” Alexis said. The beautiful red head was standing there in her winter coat. “Hi, Scarlett,” she said.

“Hi,” Ben said. “Are you ready to watch my little monster tonight?”

“Sure am,” she said, taking off her scarf and unbuttoning her coat. She was wearing a comfortable V-neck green sweater and skinny jeans and knee-high brown boots. “I’ll take my boots off.”

“Alright, Scarlett, this is Alexis, she’s going to baby-sit you tonight. I expect you to be on your best behavior while I’m out.”

“You leaving me, Daddy?” Scarlett asked, her lower lip poking out.

“Yeah, sweetheart, I am,” he admitted. “Be good for her.”

Scarlett whimpered. “Come on, I’m here to play,” Alexis said. “We’re going to have so much fun, you won’t even notice that Daddy’s not here.”   
“Scar, I need you to be a big girl,” Ben said, hoping she’d calm down and not cry. This was a new, unfamiliar landscape and they didn’t know a lot of people, yet, and Scarlett was anxious about being apart from him. “I’ll be here in the morning when you wake up.”

Scarlett’s lip still stuck out, but she looked up with him, and extended her arms for a hug. He picked her up and squeezed her.

“You’re going to be a good girl for Alexis and eat your dinner, right?”

She nodded.

“If she gives you any problems, please send me a text,” he said. “I don’t want any text, alright?” he asked Scarlett. She nodded again and he kissed her head. “I love you.” He set her down and she ran to her room. “I was serious about her giving you trouble, alright? I will stop class to deal with any rules she breaks.”

“Thanks for the email,” she said. 

“My fridge is your fridge, so help yourself, and dinner is a quiche that’s ready to bake in the oven for thirty minutes at 350, and bedtime’s at eight, so get her in the bath by seven-thirty. I’ve gotta get going. Have a good night.”

“Bye!”

He left for the subway to go to the New School.

* * *

Alexis gazed around the small West Village apartment to see if she could find something to draw Scarlett out of her room. “Scarlett?” she asked. “Do you want to watch some TV with me?”

“No.”   
She was surprised. Most kids loved TV. “Daddy told me you like  Doctor Who . I like  Doctor Who .” She sat down on the couch and unzipped her boots. “I’m going to watch it. Do you want to watch it with me?”

She turned on  Vincent and the Doctor and typed in the parental lock code on Ben’s Netflix account and the show came up. She hoped the theme song would bring her out. Ben said that she loved the 11th doctor in his email, he was her favorite. She also noticed the apartment was drafty, so she turned up the radiator.

The test had been something she had been nervous about, but was pretty certain she got an A on it today. She had another test on Friday in Anthropology, but she wasn’t too nervous about that because anthro fascinated her and it was fun to learn. Getting out her book, she opened it to the chapter on Java Man and Peking Man. She looked up and glanced around the room.

Among the pictures of Scarlett as a baby and as a little girl, here were military decorations from the Marine Corps on the walls, an American flag folded up in a triangle. It seemed that Ben had seen combat and been in the military. There was also an MFA degree from Vanderbilt University. She smiled to herself at that. And then, there was the Pulitzer nomination for excellence in journalism from five years ago. She saw an open box of his book in the corner,  A Murder in the Capital.

Oh man. Her father had to be so jealous of that Pulitzer nomination. She turned to check out the fridge to see if she could find something to drink, but she saw Scarlett’s little head peeking around the corner. Their eyes locked for a half a second, and Scarlett ran off.

Alexis checked her bedroom, and Scarlett had jumped onto her bed and was hiding under the blanket. “Scarlett?” she asked. “Why are you hiding?”

“I don’t like you.”   
“What? Why?” Alexis cried. “What did I do wrong?”

“You made Daddy go away!”

“He’s going to be back later tonight. He’s gotta work.”

“Hmph!” she grunted.

“I’m going to start making dinner. Daddy’s quiche. You want some?”

“No! Hmph!”

Alexis realized she was going to be negative and avoid her until she got hungry enough. Hopefully, she’d be hungry soon. She went to the kitchen to warm up the oven.

Ben’s kitchen was pretty well stocked, for how tiny it was. He had said Scarlett was a picky eater, it was no wonder. She went back to the living room to read a little more, setting her phone’s alarm for ten minutes. By the time she got the quiche baked, she caught Scarlett peeking around the corner of the living room, spying on her several times. Each time Alexis looked up, she’d run into her room and hide.

When the quiche was finished cooking, she left it out to cool off for a few minutes and sorted through the cabinets to find a pair of plates and the pastry server. She turned around to see Scarlett’s little head peeking around the door at her again, but this time she didn’t run off.

“Is it ready?” she asked.

“I thought you didn’t want any,” Alexis said. “You told me ‘no.’”

Little Scarlett didn’t respond, just glared at her.

“Well, I’m going to let this cool off and then I’m going to have dinner.”

“No!”

“What? Why?”

“That’s not yours!”

“What’s not mine?”

“The quiche!”

“Your daddy said I could eat some.”

“No you can’t!”

She wasn’t going to let a little three-year-old push her around. “I’m in charge until Daddy gets home. We’re going to eat dinner together.”

“You not the boss of me!”

Alexis almost burst out laughing at Scarlett’s hubris. “What? What did you just say to me?”   
“You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Wanna bet?” Alexis scooped her up and put her in the kitchen chair. “This is the time-out chair, and you’re going to sit here for four minutes because I  am in charge.” She glanced at the clock: it was six-fourteen, but the moment she looked back, Scarlett was climbing out the chair. Great, she was going to be a challenge. She picked Scarlett back up and put her in the chair while she screamed and kicked, but the moment she let go, Scarlett tried to climb back out. She wasn’t going to hold her down: Scarlett had to figure it out. “Scarlett, I’m going to keep putting you in the chair and starting the clock over until you stop trying to get out of it.”

Scarlett kicked at her and made that  Hmph! noise again. She was definitely telling Ben about that once he got home, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to text him on the first night. She could handle this. 

“No kicking. I don’t kick you.”

Scarlett put up a fight until almost seven o’clock, and she finally tired out and understood that she had to sit in the chair until Alexis let her out. She understood why some people beat their kids, now, it was tempting. Alexis waited for the timer to go off and she went back to Scarlett’s time-out chair. Her face was tear-stained and red, and her chest was heaving from crying. “Scarlett, do you know why you were put in the time-out chair?” Alexis asked, kneeling in front of her.

She twisted around to avoid Alexis’ gaze. “Yes.”

“Why was that?”

“Because I’m not in charge.”

“That’s right. Are you sorry?”

She was silent for several long moments. “Yes.”

“Good, tell me you’re sorry.”

“Sorry,” she spat out.

“Can I have a hug, now?”

Scarlett gave her the quickest, angriest hug, and turned around, crossing her arms.

“Now we can have dinner.” She checked the quiche, and it was tepid, now. Well, if this is what it took to get Scarlett to obey, it was worth it. She cut the quiche into pieces and plated it, pouring Scarlett some milk. There were beers in the fridge, but Alexis didn’t want to drink on the job, although it was quite tempting after that fight. She had a glass of water from the Britta pitcher.

“It’s too cold!” Scarlett complained.

“Well, if you hadn’t resisted time-out for so long, it would be hot,” Alexis said. 

Scarlett growled as Alexis cut up her quiche for her in bite-size pieces. She needed to be angry for a while. She ate her dinner wordlessly. 

When she was done, Alexis took her plate and milk glass to the sink. “It’s time for a bath,” she said. “Come on.”

She resisted a little, but went to the only bathroom in the apartment, where Alexis pulled back the shower curtain and plugged the drain before running the faucet. There were bath toys still in the tub. Scarlett wasn’t acting out at this point, which was a good thing. While the tub filled, Alexis managed to get the little girl undressed and put her in the tub, testing the water ahead of time to make sure it wasn’t too hot.

Scarlett played with her bath toys for about fifteen minutes while Alexis read her Anthropology book before scrubbing her down and washing her hair. Once Scarlett was clean, she pulled the plug and got Scarlett out of the tub to dry off. She wasn’t so cranky now, which made her easier to deal with. By the time Scarlett was dressed in her pajamas, Alexis let her pick out the book she wanted to read for bedtime.

“Dis one,” she said, holding out Neil Gaiman’s  Blueberry Girl .

“Oh, you’ve got good taste in books!” Alexis noted. She picked up Scarlett and put her in the bed and pulled the covers over her legs. She began to read  Blueberry Girl to Scarlett. When she was done, she tucked the covers into the mattress and boxsprings, and turned off the lights. “Good night, Scarlett.”

She was proud of herself: she had gotten Scarlett to bed by eight-fifteen. She got her Anthro book out of the bathroom and began to clean up the kitchen dishes. Ben didn’t have a dishwasher, so she had to hand-wash everything. As she was squeezing out the sponge, she heard a soft voice.

“A-wexa? Can I have some water?”

She whirled around to see Scarlett standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Yes, you may, but you need to go to bed,” Alexis said, getting a small glass out of the cabinet, and pouring some water from the Britta pitcher for her. Scarlett drank the water in the kitchen very slowly while Alexis washed the dishes. Once she was done, Alexis took Scarlett back to the bed. “You don’t have to go potty, do you?”

Scarlett thought to herself for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay, let’s go potty, but after that, you need to go back to bed.”

She took Scarlett to the bathroom and set her up on the potty. She was finally getting sleepy and after a minute, she finally started to pee. Once she was done with the potty, Alexis pulled her pajama pants up and took her back to the bed.

“Goodnight, Scarlett,” Alexis said, kissing her on the head.

Alexis went to the couch and started reading her Anthro book, trying to relax, the TV off. She had read five pages when Scarlett appeared in the doorway, bleary-eyed. “A-wexa? I had a bad dream.”

No, she didn’t , Alexis thought. She got up, wordlessly, not entertaining Scarlett’s attempts to get to stay up late, and picked her up. She didn’t speak to the little girl, but put her back in bed. If she had to, she’d camp out outside the door to cut her off. There wouldn’t be any more conversations tonight. If Scarlett didn’t have any other stimulation, she wouldn’t have any other reason to wake up and avoid bedtime.

Scarlett fought a little bit when placed back in the bed, but Alexis tucked her in again, and shut the door to the room. She sat down outside the door, and Scarlet began to cry some crocodile tears. Alexis knew it when kids were faking it. The sobs got closer to the door and it opened. Scarlett was standing there, sobbing. 

Wordlessly, Alexis picked her up and repeated putting her into the bed.

Once she sat down outside the door to Scarlett’s bedroom, she heard the apartment door open. “Alexis?” Ben called quietly.

“Daddy?” Scarlett cried over Alexis’ shoulder.

“In the hallway,” Alexis called back. She turned to Scarlett and scooped her up. Ben appeared.

“Scar, what are you doing up?” Ben asked sternly. “Is this an uh-oh? Come here.”

Alexis handed the little girl over to her father, who took her into the darkened room and set her down in the bed. “ We’re going to stay in the bed and go to sleep. No more giving Miss Alexis a hard time, ” he said to her. He gave her a noisy kiss on the forehead.  “Goodnight, sweetpea.”

Alexis went to the living room to put her books away and get her boots back on. Ben came into the living room. “I’m so sorry if she gave you a hard time,” he said.

“I know all about the battle of the wills,” Alexis said, offering a smile. God, he was sexy: handsome, smart, thoughtful, that damn Southern accent, and he was a good father. A great father, a lot like her own. “I had a lot of practice with my dad.”

“Oh, he taught you?”   
“Ha. I taught him.”

“She didn’t give you any trouble asides from bedtime did she?”

Alexis shrugged. “Well, she said to me at one point, ‘You’re not the boss of me’ and we struggled to get through a four-minute time out that turned into a thirty minute one.”

Ben groaned, closing his eyes. “She knows what time-out means. She doesn’t do that with me. But the whole, ‘I’m the boss’ attitude, we’re going to have a conversation about that tomorrow morning.”

“Well, she submitted, finally. She knows I’m boss, now… Well, when you’re not around.”

He chuckled. “Good. She can be a little shit, sometimes. Here,” he got out his wallet. He placed sixty dollars in her hand for four hours of work.

“This is too much-”

“No, you broke her in, that’s a tip,” he laughed. “I think I like you, even if she was still awake when I got in.”

Alexis grinned. “Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

She took a cab home to Tribeca and sneaked into her father’s loft. He and Kate were still up, reading and drinking a red dessert wine. She noticed Kate was reading Ben’s novel. “How did it go?” Castle asked as she unwound her scarf from her neck.

“Tonight was all about breaking Scarlett in,” Alexis said. “But I think she knows who’s in charge.”

“Tell me all about it,” Kate said.

“Well, she wouldn’t come out of her room, except to spy on me, and when I asked her if she wanted dinner, she said no. Once I made dinner, she started to tell me I couldn’t have any because it was her food, and I told her that Daddy said something different, and then she said, ‘you’re not the boss of me!’”

Kate’s eyes got wide and she burst out laughing. “Oh, I remember that in my babysitting days!”

“Well, we struggled for like, thirty minutes to get her to serve a four-minute time-out. Once she did that, the food was cold, and she got mad, but I told her it was her fault for not serving out her time-out the moment I put her butt in the chair. I got a good idea of why some parents spank their kids.”

“Trust me, there were a few times I almost blistered your butt,” Castle said. “But I picked my battles.”

“Yeah. Getting her to bed was a battle, too. She kept on getting out of bed.”

“Oh, that was the funnest part,” Kate said, rolling her eyes.

‘Yeah, she was still sneaking out of her room the moment her father walked in the door. But I think she knows now that I’m the one in charge.”

“Yeah, that’s the way you do it,” Castle said.

“I’m going to baby-sit again Thursday night,” Alexis said. “He thinks I’m doing well with Scarlett. I think she’ll start to like me now that she’s tested her boundaries out. I’m going to take a shower and do a little more studying before bed. Goodnight!”

Once Alexis was out of the shower, she heard Kate knock on the door. “Just a second, I’m not dressed!” She quickly pulled her tank top and pajama pants on under her towel. “Alright!”

“Hey,” Kate said, sticking her head in the door. “I’ve been reading his book. I want to know all about him!”

“Well, from what I picked up, he’s seen combat with the Marine Corps. You know he was a Marine, right?”

“Well, that’s kind of sexy,” Kate muttered to herself, curling up on the bed.

“I think he got the purple heart, too,” Alexis said. “He was medically discharged. And he got his MFA from Vanderbilt University.”

“Yeah, that was on his website. You know your dad practically tried to do a background check on him at the Precinct today?”

“Ugh, Dad!” Alexis laughed.

“He just wants to keep you safe. All that he was able to find out was that he wasn’t married to his daughter’s mother. Her name is Chloe Hannah Messingill, and she sings backup for Harland Williams, the country singer, on tour.”

“Not surprising.”

“I was wondering about her mother. I didn’t asked. What else did Dad find out about her?”

“She gave up full custody of Scarlett by the time she was a year old,” Kate said.

“As in, she doesn’t see her mother at all?” Alexis asked, surprised. She and Scarlett had that in common.

Kate shrugged. “I don’t think so. He also got nominated for Pulitzer, which is a major source of irritation for your dad, too,” she reported. “And his parents are both dead.”

“Yeah, I saw the nomination letter that he had framed,” Alexis said, combing her wet hair out. “Sad about his parents. Really, I could have disturbed his class he was teaching tonight, but I decided I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Scarlett get to me the first time I baby-sat her.”

“You’re pretty tough,” Kate noted.

“I just know what I’m doing,” Alexis shrugged, thinking of all the kids she baby-sat in this building when she was a tween. “Man, I’m exhausted!”

“Testing her limits, that’s all,” Kate said. “What did you think of him?”

“He’s cute, his accent is really hot. Am I too young to think that a good dad is really sexy?”

“No, not at all!” Kate cried. “I think that’s part of what I like about your father.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. 

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from studying. I doubt you got much done with her around.” 

“Yes, true. Hopefully that won’t be the case in the future. He called her a little shit in front of me when she was in bed. I can’t believe he called her that!”

“That’s a Southern term,” Kate said. “It means she can be a brat, but she’s cute and still loveable, so she gets away with it. Well, I’m going to turn in myself. You never know when they’re going to call me in. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Kate.”

She got out her Anthro book and started reading.


	3. 1st Attempts at a Long Weekend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does.

Scarlett was finally taking to Alexis and trusting her. She didn’t fight her when it was bedtime, she didn’t try to call the shots when Alexis told her to do something. It had taken a few baby-sitting appointments, but Alexis and Scarlett were finally bonding. Scarlett trusted her and wanted to play like a normal child. The battle of the wills was over within a few days.

On Saturday morning, Alexis woke up early, much to her irritation since Saturday was usually her day to sleep in, and she got dressed to go to the West Village. She arrived at Ben and Scarlett’s apartment. Ben was still picking out his shirt for the workshop he was teaching.

“Is it just me or do you teach too much?” Alexis asked, as he invited her to have a cup of coffee. She had never seen it before, but he had a sleeve of tattoos on his right arm that wasn’t visible when he wore long-sleeve shirts. She found that a little dangerous in the professional world, but she liked it. Ben was rebelling against the system in his own way.

“Yeah, I kind of do. Affording a two-bedroom apartment in the West Village on an adjunct professor’s salary is impossible,” he said. He disappeared into his bedroom. Alexis freshened her cup of coffee.

“A-wexa?” Scarlett asked. She was still in her pajamas and bed-headed.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Alexis said. “Did you just wake-up?”

The little girl nodded, rubbing her eye.

“Can I make you some breakfast?” she asked. 

“There’s some cereal, if you want some. Or toast. She can only have one piece of toast with Nutella, though,” Ben called. He reappeared with a few button-up shirts on hangers. “Peanut butter on any other pieces of toast. Can you help me choose? Which one is most professional?”

“Um,” Alexis studied the three shirts: there was an apricot colored one, a dark blue one, and a white one. “What tie are you wearing with it?”

“Ugh,” he muttered, going back into the bedroom.

“I want some Nutewa,” Scarlett said. Alexis got the bread out of the freezer to put into the toaster oven for her. Nutella and toast sounded good to her, too. She got out the butter (Ben didn’t keep margarine in his house) and started on the toast while Scarlett wrapped herself up in her baby blanket. Ben reappeared in the kitchen doorway. “Okay, which one, now?”

“I like the dark blue one with the red tie.”

“Good, that’s what I’ll wear.”

He put the other two down on the table and started putting on the dark blue shirt on over his undershirt. “If she wants to go out to play at the park when the sun comes out, that’s fine. She can have a morning snack of apples, cheese, and juice, and if I’m not home by lunchtime, sandwiches. The ingredients are all here in the kitchen, okay?”

Alexis nodded as he started tucking the shirt into his pants and flipped up the collar to put on the tie. “We will be fine!” she agreed. 

“I need to get her dressed--”

“I can help her with that,” Alexis said. “Go, don’t be late.”

“Alright. Can I get a kiss good-bye?” he asked Scarlett. He bent down and she kissed him on the cheek. “Brush your teeth after breakfast. Love you.”

“Wuv you,” Scarlett muttered.

Alexis got the toast slices out of the toaster oven and made one up with Nutella while Ben couldn’t quite get his tie done correctly.

“Here,” Alexis said softly, taking the tie into her hands. She shivered; he hadn’t shaved this week, in an effort to grow out his beard against the cold weather. She always found the scruff of a beard sexy. He was damn sexy, to be honest. “I used to do this for my dad when he got too nervous to put his own on. There we go.” She tied it in the perfect Windsor Knot. His hand closed over her wrist.

For a moment, Alexis forgot how to breathe. She was being silly. He was in his thirties, at least. She was just barely out of her teens.

“Let me go check this out in the mirror,” he said. “Okay,” Ben sighed nervously from the bathroom. “Okay, I’m gone,” he said, flipping down his collar and grabbing his coat. “Bye!”

“Bye!” Scarlett and Alexis shouted.

The two girls sat down and ate breakfast. Alexis got her dressed in warm winter clothes and by now, the sun was out. She packed a few apples and some string cheese and juice boxes in her backpack, and by now, Scarlett was awake. Alexis made her go to the potty one last time, and then they left for the park.

Scarlett’s attitude improved after ten minutes of walking, and then, when she was on the playground, she was playing with the other children. Alexis bought a coffee from a vendor and sat down on the bench to watch.

“Your little girl is so cute,” a lady said to her. “Are you black Irish?”

Alexis looked up and realized the lady was talking to her. “Oh, no, she’s not mine,” Alexis said. “I’m just her baby-sitter.” She offered the woman a smile.

“I haven’t seen you around here before, I was just trying to introduce myself. I’m Mary Campbell, she’s playing with my daughter right now.”

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m Alexis.”

They talked for a while, but then another friend of Mary’s came by and they started talking, which left Alexis alone in her thoughts. She was lost in the idea that Ben was actually pretty handsome, and the chill his hand on her wrist gave her this morning over the tie.

Mid-morning, Scarlett came over and asked for a snack, and Alexis gave her the string cheese and juice box, and had to open both for herself. Scarlett made a few more friends and they played on slide together, taking turns. Alexis sent Ben a text saying that everything was going well and not to worry. Scarlett was getting tired by ten-thirty. Alexis took her back home for a while, letting her relax and take a mid-morning nap. This gave her a few minutes to read some of  5 Chimneys . The book was so disturbing, she had a hard time sleeping at night if she read it right before bed and tried to read it in the mornings as an alternative. She honestly believed that Columbia was not only making her pay the price in tuition, but pay the price in what she could stomach. All she had to do was write a paper on this book at the end of the semester for her final, and she was done with this class.

Scarlett woke up and came into the living room.

“What ah you weading?” she asked.

“Oh. This. It’s a book about some really terrible people.”

“How bad?”

“Really bad people. Let’s read something happy, like  Chu’s Day ,” Alexis said, tucking the book away in her laptop bag. “Then we can make lunch.”

As they sat down in Scarlett’s room to read, Ben came home.

“Oh, you’re early!” Alexis cried after hearing him walk in the door. Scarlett jumped out of her lap and ran up to her father.

“Hi. How was the morning?” he asked.

“We went to play in the park once the sun came up,” Alexis said. “I was going to make lunch once we finished the book.”

“My workshop finished early. Apparently, there was a rumor that an agent would be teaching it, so most everyone had their pitches and manuscripts ready. I’m sorry I was such a ‘disappointment.’ Most everyone left after the break, the few people stayed to see if I’d pass their pitches on my agent. I very politely said no, and I was told to do something I’d never say in front of my daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “My dad’s been through it, too. He has some stories to tell.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he said. She had never outright told him that her father was Richard Castle until today. “Listen, I’m gonna make lunch, you wanna stay while I ask you something?”

“Sure,” she said.

In the kitchen, he started making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a side of chips and one of carrots. Scarlett told him all about going to the park and the friends she made.

He cut the crusts off Scarlett’s. “You want your crusts cut off, too, Alexis?”

“No, I don’t mind,” she admitted.

He set down the plates at the little breakfast table and pulled up a chair for Scarlett to sit in. “I’ve been invited to be a speaker a book convention in Chicago next weekend. I was going to take Scar with me, but honestly, I’d have a hard time keeping up with her. I’m thinking it might be a good idea for you to take her for the weekend.”

“All next weekend?” Alexis repeated, trying to consider her plans.

“I can find someone else to take her if it’s not a possibility for you.”

“No, just a second,” she looked at her iPhone to see her schedule. She had a lunch date with some of her prep school friends on Saturday and study group on Sunday night for Anthro. She might be able to have Scarlett play quietly with a toy during the study group, and her friends would absolutely love her. “You know what? I think I can do it.”

“Good. Do you think fifty dollars a day is fair?” he asked, his blue eyes striking her as beautiful. She felt a chill under his gaze. “You can sleep in my room. I’ll be home Sunday afternoon.”

“That’s fine,” she said, realizing she wouldn’t have to take Scarlett to the study group. “We can make that work.”

* * *

Ben had been on the short list of fill-in speakers for this book festival, but hadn’t gotten the call until last night. He was thankful he had Alexis available to take care of Scarlett. After lunch, Alexis got up to leave, and Scarlett wanted to hug her goodbye.

Taking a child all weekend long was a big order for a college-age babysitter. He knew all too well that it was a lot to ask her to give up an entire weekend when she could be going to parties or out with her friends. There was something about Alexis that belied maturity, she was an  old soul . He liked that about her, unlike her drunken college-age counterparts he knew so well at Vandy. Well, maybe she was one of those drunken party girls but hid it well when she was babysitting his daughter. He hadn’t expected some one so calm and capable when compared to her wild, bachelor father. True, Castle was remarried, finally, but that didn’t mean his party days were over. Ben remembered his own party days, when he was wild as a March Hare and just back from combat in Afghanistan. His agent had sold his manuscript, and he was going a bit crazy with the partying, the women who loved a man in uniform, and all the booze he could drink. Then, he got deployed again. He came back from Afghanistan and he came home eight months later, to be met at the runway in Fort Campbell by the girl who he had messed around with in Nashville, Chloe, who had a baby bump. It terrified him to think that he was the father, and she insisted he was. DNA testing proved it just in time for Chloe to go into labor. The little girl was born, and he was called into the delivery room. The doctor handed the squirming, goo-covered thing to Ben, and he looked into her face. That was the moment he knew things would never be the same. He named the little girl after the world’s best-known Southern heroine: Scarlett O’Hara, much to Chloe’s dismay, she wanted to name the little girl Zahara Dora. He said no to that name. Her name ended up being Scarlett Rosewalker, Rose Walker for Neil Gaiman’s  Sandman comics.

Chloe had tried to demand child support, knowing Ben had a lot of money in the bank from his best-selling novel, but he insisted on joint custody of Scarlett. The judge agreed to joint custody 50-50, and it would be resettled when Scarlett was in school or when one of them moved out of the state of Tennessee. That hadn’t lasted long. Chloe got a job singing backup for a country music star in Nashville, and ended up going on tour. By now, Ben had retired from the Marine Corps and had started teaching part-time at Austin Peay State University in the Creative Writing and Freshman Comp classes so he could be closer to Scarlett. By the time Scarlett was six months old, Chloe told him she was going on the road and not coming home for three months. Three months stretched into five, and then two weeks with Scarlett turned into nine days, and so on and so on until Ben finally requested a custody revisitation and was awarded full custody of Scarlett with Chloe didn’t show up for the hearing. Chloe later said that she had dreams of getting her own recording contract on Music Row. Ben told her  good luck , and took Scarlett, who was now walking, to the park. Chloe’s child support checks never came, and Ben just decided it was for the best: Scarlett was his little honeybee, and he loved every minute he spent with her. She loved the “Honeybee” song, and would request him to play it on his banjo for her, and would dance to it. To hell with Chloe, this was his baby girl and it was his job to make her feel as loved as possible. They didn’t need Chloe, he could be mother and father to Scar.

With the sale of his second novel, he got a request from NYU to teach creative writing and at the New School in Brooklyn. He was sick of Nashville and the condescending way people would look at Scarlett and him, and say, “Oh, is it Daddy’s turn to take care of you today?” As if it was impossible for a man to raise his daughter by himself. He had enjoyed his time away from the South, and he was reminded of the saying,  It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Especially after his mother and father had both died when he was getting his MFA. New York City sounded quite exciting. He personally couldn’t get enough of big cities. So they sold most of their furniture and packed up everything they owned into the back of his Tundra, and went on a road trip to New York. By sheer luck, he came across a two-bedroom rent controlled apartment in the West Village before leaving, and they had a place to live the moment they arrived that hot August morning. It didn’t have A/C and it turned out to be really drafty in the wintertime, but you couldn’t beat $2500 a month for a two bedroom in Manhattan.

He had taken Scarlett with him to work at first, and she’d watch DVDs on an old laptop of his in the back of the classroom while he taught, but it wasn’t long before she started getting bored of the DVDs and the episodes of  Doctor Who . When she started disturbing classes, Ben decided it was time to put her in pre-school and find a babysitter two nights a week. He didn’t want his dean getting after him about this.

It was sheer luck that he happen to run across Alexis. He was surprised she wanted to babysit when her resume looked so professional and like she was heading towards a career in law, and quite quickly, to be honest. He had pieced two and two together; her father was Richard Castle, a writer that his fellow marines loved reading, and some of them jerked off to pictures of his fiancee, who was pretty hot, he had to admit. Alexis was a pretty girl herself, but she was his employee, he was her employer, and to try anything with her would be force. He couldn’t think of anything more insulting than commanding a woman against her will. To have one come to him freely and by her own choice was a requirement in his book. There was nothing sexier than knowing he could attract a woman enough to make her want him.

He was happy Scarlett had bonded with her after a rough first night alone with her. She considered Alexis a friend, and now, she had made friends her own age at the playground today. This was good news, she was normally really shy and panicked when he left her at a new daycare. He enjoyed the break from her, too, it gave him time to write completely immersed in the project, without one eye on her. But, everything was expensive in New York and new writers didn’t make that much, although his paychecks coming in were enough for them to live off of in Nashville, but he had to work a second job to make ends meet.

He and Scarlett were going out to dinner tonight, where he’d talk to her about going to Chicago and what it meant. 

He let her watch  the Day of the Doctor episode of  Doctor Who , and she got tired again. He laid her down, and she slept. She used to take two naps a day up until she was two, and then went down to one a day. Today had been special. 

While she slept, he got some writing done. When she got up, they played some  Halo 3  on the XBOX, one of Scarlett’s favorite video games. A lot of people couldn’t believe she was such a good player for only being three. He had to put the headset on her to convince the people they played with online.

Later that night, he ordered a cheese pizza (she wouldn’t have any other kind of pizza) and they ate happily while she told him some more about the friends she made at the playground this morning with Miss A-wexa. After this, they went out for ice cream at an old-fashioned ice cream parlour in the West Village, which she loved, because there was an Angelus piano that played itself, and that was a source of endless entertainment for Scarlett. Ben recorded a video of it on his phone as she sat at the bench, giggling and pretending to play it herself.

There were the moments everybody told him to treasure: she’d be a teenager in an instant, this time was short, in retrospect.

After she had her ice cream, they took a walk back to their apartment. “Is A-wexa gonna be my mommy?” Scarlett asked.

“What?” Ben asked, surprised. “What makes you think she’s your mommy?”

“The wady at the pahk today. She asked if A-wexa was my mommy.”

“Oh, people mistake babysitters for mommies all the time.”

“Oh. But I don’t have a mommy.”

He hated this when this conversation came up: most kids did have moms, but Chloe wasn’t there. She hadn’t even responded when he had his lawyer alert her that he was moving to New York with Scarlett. Scarlett was aware she was missing a mother, and that she wasn’t like other kids. Daddies could be there or not, it was sort of a sad expectation sometimes in families. But most everyone had a mom. “That’s what makes you special,” he said, squeezing her sticky hand through the mitten. “You have a daddy that loves you more than anybody in the world.” He hoped he could steer her off the subject, but she could be persistent. “And there are people out there that don’t have a daddy.”

“But I want a mommy.”

“Families come in all different shapes and sizes, Scar,” he said.

“But evewybody has a mommy, don’t dey?”

He didn’t want to lie to her. “Well, sure. Everybody has a mommy, technically, but she’s not always able to be a mommy as you’re growing up.”

“So I  do have a mommy?”

He owed her the truth, however awful it was. “Yes, you do.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Chloe Messingill, and she sings all over the world as backup for Harland Williams.”

“Why don’t I know hew?”

Because she’s a God-awful gold-digging tramp,  Ben thought. “Because she… wants to be a famous singer so she can buy you all the toys you could ever want. And it’s a lot of hard work, so she said to me, ‘Ben, can you take care of Scarlett until I get to be really famous as a singer? Someday my songs will be on the radio, and I’ll be best mommy ever to her.’ And I said, ‘Sure.’ So she’s working really hard right now so she can be a good mommy to you one day. One day, she’s going to record a song and we’ll have to help her by getting everybody out there to go out and buy it, and then she’ll be able to be your mommy.”

“Why can’t she be my mommy wight now?”

“Because being a country music star takes a lot of work,” Ben said. “A lot more work than what I do.”

“Then she be my mommy?”

“Yes. And by then, I might have married someone else, and she’ll be another mommy to you, too. Then, you’ll have two. Maybe Chloe will have a new husband, and he’ll be another daddy to you. Families are all shapes and sizes, squirt. Some are like ours, just you and me, others, a hundred kids and just a mommy and a daddy. Other families have two mommies and two daddies, but one kid. Some families have two daddies and two kids, or two mommies and two kids. And there are all families and they’re all just like ours. You don’t have to have a mommy to be a family.”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Ben breathed a sigh of relief: he had just convinced her that a family didn’t always need a mommy. That made him feel a lot better.

“But Chwoe wants me, wight?”

“Yes, she does. She just wants to be good enough for you,” he lied. He didn’t like lying, but it was the truth about her; Chloe needed to be worthy of loving someone as amazing as Scarlett, and that meant putting in the effort a parent should, even if Chloe was chasing a fool’s dream over mothering her only daughter. Maybe one day, she’d kick herself for not being there like she should have been.

He could only hope for Scarlett’s sake.


	4. 1st Attempts at a Surviving in a Freezer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, just playing in the sandbox.

“Okay, text me if you need anything, my Skype will be up and running at the hotel, I’ll check in with the two of you every night,” he said. “Scarlett, I expect to be on your best behavior this weekend for Miss Alexis. Understand me?”

“Yes, suh,” Scarlett said as her father picked her up. She cupped her father’s face in her teeny hands.

“I love you and I will be thinking about you the whole time I’m in Chicago.” He leaned forward and place a kiss on her lips. “I’ll see you on the computer?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Good. Love you, sweet girl,” he said, putting her down on the couch. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Miss you, too!”

“Bye!”

“Bye-bye!”

The door shut behind Ben, and Alexis crossed the room.

“So…” Alexis said to Scarlett, who was playing with the frayed end of the couch arm. “What do you want to do, first this weekend?”

Scarlett looked up at her babysitter with her giant, dark-blue eyes. “Um… Ice cweam?”

“Before dinner? We’re getting a pizza!”

“Can we eat ice cweam befo’ da pizza?”

“No, we’re going to eat dinner, first,” Alexis said. She shivered: this apartment was cold. SHe went to see the thermostat, and it was down to sixty-two degrees. Brr. She went over to the radiator to turn it up, only to find it was all the way up. “Ugh,” she muttered, getting a sweater out of her bag. “Are you cold, too?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Scarlett replied.

“Come on, let’s get a warmer sweater on,” she said, taking her hand. In the bedroom, Scarlett chose a rainbow hoodie, and Alexis put it on her. They watched an episode of  Doctor Who and Alexis did a second draft edit of her Western Civ paper on  5 Chimneys . The apartment seemed to be getting colder. By the time the pizza arrived, Alexis went downstairs to pay the delivery man, but made a complaint with the doorman about how cold the apartment was getting.

“I’ll put your apartment on the list of ones having problems.”

“What? Everybody’s having problems?”

“Well, to be honest, most.”

“This is not good.”

“No, it’s really not. I think the furnace went out.”

“Ugh,” Alexis sighed. When she got back upstairs, the apartment was down to fifty-nine degrees, and Scarlett had put on her gloves. “Smart thinkin’, Scar,” she said, getting her own gloves out of her coat. “Are you sure you want that ice cream?”

“The ice cweam pwace is wahm,” she said.

“It’s probably warmer than here,” Alexis muttered. They tried to eat pizza with their gloved hands, but it wasn’t easy. Ben had told her the flue to the fireplace was not opened by the super, so they couldn’t build a fire. Alexis wished she could: they could get marshmallows out for toasting and camp out all weekend. The temperature outside was dipping down into the teens. After dinner, she bundled Scarlett up and put on her own coat, and they walked down to the ice cream parlour, where Scarlett ordered a chocolate-peanut-butter ice cream and Alexis got the mocha cone. Oddly enough, the ice cream parlour was much warmer than the apartment. While Scarlett was playing the self-playing piano, she got a text  from her father.

How’s the weekend starting?

She sighed and responded.  Badly. The furnace is out in the building, and Scarlett and I were so cold, the ice cream parlour was warmer. They’ll probably get it fixed tonight.

She took a video of Scarlett playing and laughing, and another kid joined her at the bench and they pretended to play piano together.

When it got close to Scarlett’s weekend bedtime, Alexis walked her home, but when they arrived in the apartment, it was so cold, she could still see their breath in the air. She checked the thermostat; it had dropped down to fifty-two degrees.

“Okay, this is not going to work,” Alexis admitted, taking Scarlett’s little hand. She took Scarlett downstairs and saw other residents surrounding the doorman’s desk, all complaining about the temperature in the building.

“Look, I’m sorry everybody, the super’s on it, but it’s going to be a while!”

“Hey,” Alexis said over the voice. “Do we have an ETA on when it’s going to be fixed?”

The doorman rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palm. “No, we don’t.”

“Can we at least get the flue to the fireplaces opened?” Alexis asked.

“The Sup’s first priority is the furnace,” he said, annoyed.

“That’s it,” Alexis muttered to Scarlett. She took her upstairs to pack a weekend bag. This was inexcusable. She sent a text message to Ben that they were going to spend the weekend at her father’s place because the furnace was out at his apartment and the temperature was falling. She put all the faucets in the apartment on drip, and turned off all the lights.

“We’re going to my dad’s house,” Alexis said. “That’s where I live. It’s not too far from here, but you need a bath and to go to bed.”

“Yeah, I do,” Scarlett agreed.

“You can sleep in my room with me,” Alexis said, carrying her out of the building. She hailed a taxi and in no time, they were back at her father’s house. They walked in, and Castle and Kate were already home. “Didn’t you guys go out?” she asked, perplexed.

“We’re boring married people, now,” Kate answered from the couch, where she was laying out in her pajamas and hoodie.

“So the apartment almost freezing?” Castle asked. “And is this little angel Scarlett?”

Alexis nodded, and Scarlett giggled: Castle was great with little kids, and had a lot of experience with raising little girls, due to Alexis. “Okay, Scarlett, this is my house, and there’s a lot to do here, but my daddy has a lot of things that break. So always ask if you want to play with something other than your toys.”

“O-tay,” she said as Alexis took off her coat and unwound the little girl’s scarf.

“I need to get you into the bathtub, but there’s only a shower in my bathroom,” Alexis continued.

“Why don’t you use my bathroom to give her a bath?” Castle asked.

“Sounds good,” Alexis said, taking off her own coat and scarf. “Scar, get your pj’s out.”

Scarlett began pulling her things out of her bag and Alexis took her things upstairs to her room. She came down and Scarlett was chatting it up with Castle. Kate had her book in her lap and was watching and grinning. Scarlett was hanging on Castle’s every word.

“Scar, come on, let’s go take a bath,” Alexis said.

Then went to the master bathroom, and Scarlett looked around, “This is a big bafwoom!”

“Yeah, for New York,” Alexis agreed, running the hot water. She always sneaked in here as tween, when they first moved to Tribeca, when her father wasn’t home, to take baths in this giant tub. She pulled the plug to the drain. “Alright, you get undressed.”

The little girl began to take off her clothes and Alexis helped her, she had on a lot of layers, and they were dirty. Alexis lifted her up and put her into the tub.

Scarlett didn’t have any toys, but she happily played with the little shampoo bottle that had come complimentary with her parent’s honeymoon suite. She let her play for a few minutes and sing a few songs to herself, and then scrubbed her down, washing her hair with Kate’s shampoo. Once she was clean, Alexis got her out and dressed her in her pajamas for bed. She dried her hair, then took Scarlett back out to the living room. “We’re going to bed, now,” Alexis said. “Say goodnight to my parents.”

“Goodnight,” Scarlett said.

“Goodnight Scarlet,” her parents chorused.

“Hey Alexis, your phone chimed while you were giving her a bath,” Castle said.

“I’ll get it when I her to bed,” Alexis said, helping her up the stairs to her room. “Okay, this is my room, I’m going to sleep in here with you later, but for now it’s bedtime. What book did you bring?”

“ Flowa & Uwysses ,” Scarlett drawled, getting her book out of the bag. She handed the Kate DiCamillo book to Alexis.

Alexis read to her and tucked her in. She snuggled into the bed and Alexis turned on the space heater. “This feel nice,” Scarlett admitted.

“Yeah, I’ve got a nice bed,” Alexis admitted. “Goodnight, Scarlett.”

“Go’night.”

Alexis switched off the light, leaving the bathroom light on with the door cracked open, and went downstairs. 

“Oh my God, Alexis! She’s adorable!” Kate cried. “She had the cutest little accent! They’re from Nashville?”

“Around that area, yeah,” Alexis said, getting out her phone. Ben had texted her to call him back when she got a chance, he’d be waiting. “She’s hysterical sometimes, I swear. She’s so smart. I’ve got to call her dad and let him know where we are.”

“Alright,” Castle said.

She got up and went into the office to call Ben. He answered on the third ring. “Alexis?”

“Hi,” she said. There was a lot of background noise.

“Just a second,” he said. A moment later, the noise almost completely died. “Okay, sorry about that, I was trying to have a drink in the bar with some other writers. What happened?”

“The furnace is out in your building.”

He sighed. “I’m so sorry. The heat’s been really weak for the last couple of days, but I didn’t think it would just give out.”

“Well, I could have told you that. Don’t you guys have furnaces in Tennessee?”

“Honestly? No.”

“Lucky you have me around to help you through your first New York winter,” she teased. “They said the super was on it, but the ETA was unknown.”

“Ugh. I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be. We’re at my father’s place. Just ask to get your flue opened when you get home. I just put her to bed, she’s fine. And don’t worry, I left your water faucets dripping so your pipes wouldn’t burst.”

”Thank you,” he said, gratefully. “I can come home.”

“No, you said you’d do this conference, do it. I remember when my dad was in this position and going to conferences to make ends meet,” she said. “We’re safe and warm, and you can sue your super when you get home. So far, she’s behaving, so don’t worry.”

“Good. I’ll call in the morning to see if I can catch up with her,” he said.

“Go and enjoy yourself in the Windy City,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”

“Thank you, Alexis.”

“You’re welcome.”

She went back into the living room once she had hung up with him. “He was going to come back from the convention, but I talked him out of it,” she said. “I’m resourceful. I’m hoping they get the furnace fixed at his building, soon. You know they don’t have furnaces in the buildings in Nashville?”

“Yeah, duh, that’s the South,” Castle said. “I’m surprised you took this job on a weekend you could be out, having a great time with your friends.”

She shrugged. “It just seems sort of childish at my age. Not every weekend. So, Kate, what did you think of Ben’s book?”

Kate glanced at Castle and a smirk spread across her face before she replied to Alexis. “He’s got a solid style, he’s growing in the right direction as a writer, I think.”

“I got an ARC for Penguin for him,” Castle admitted.

“Yeah, that’s the one I read,” Kate said.

“Can I read it after I finish finals?” Alexis asked.

“Sure,” Castle said. “Well, we’re going to go to bed soon. What about you?”

“Yeah, probably,” Alexis agreed. “God knows she’ll be up early enough. Okay, goodnight.”

Alexis went upstairs to change into her pajamas. She saw Scarlett sleeping soundly in the middle of her bed. She smiled, looking down at her.

Having a little girl around was nice, for once. 

She changed into her pajamas and washed her face before brushing her teeth. She climbed into the bed beside Scarlett, who stirred. “Move over,” she whispered. Scarlett refused. She gently moved Scarlett over to the other side of the bed, and she snuggled in. “Goodnight, Scarlett.” She kissed her on the crown of her head.

* * *

In the morning, Scarlett woke Alexis up when she rolled over in bed onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows.

Alexis’ eyes focused on Scarlett, who looked groggy. “Good morning,” Alexis said as sweetly as possible.

Scarlett didn’t respond or look at her, just got out of the bed to go to the bathroom and pee-peed on the potty on her own.

Alexis sat up. “Scar, wash your hands when you’re done,” she called after her. The little girl didn’t respond. Alexis closed her eyes. The toilet never flushed, but she heard Scarlett’s voice.

“A-wexa, I can’t get to wash my hans,” she whined.

Alexis sat up in bed and realized it wasn’t working. She threw back the covers and picked Scarlett up so she could get her hands under the water stream. She was too short for the sink. She’d need a step stool if they were going to stay here all weekend and she was going to be able to wash her hands. When her hands were clean, Alexis put her down and flushed the toilet, but she heard the door shut to her bedroom.

“Scar?” she called.

Scarlett had gone downstairs.

She brushed her teeth quickly and went down to find her. She was looking around the downstairs.

“Want some breakfast?”   
“Okay.”

“We’ve got cereal and we can make some Nutella toast,” she offered. She yawned, thinking of how early it was when she saw that it four minutes after seven.

“Nutella,” Scarlett said, yawning.

Alexis started the toast, and started the coffee, too. She turned on the TV in the living room to turn on a Netflix movie for Scarlett. She settled on  Monsters, Inc . and went back to the kitchen to finished the Nutella toast. She put a slice of bread into the toaster for her own Nutella toast.

IN the living room, she joined Scarlett, serving her toast and had her own coffee while they watched  Monsters, Inc. together. Scarlett crossed her long, bean-pole legs across the couch.

Her phone rang upstairs, and Alexis chastised herself for not bringing it down while Scarlett watched morning cartoons. She ran upstairs as fast as she could, and caught the phone right as it was going to voicemail.

“Ben?” she cried breathlessly.

“I love it when girls answer my calls out of breath,” he teased, sounding like he just woke up. “How is she doing?”

“Oh, we just got up and had Nutella toast for breakfast. We’re watching  Monsters, Inc. and we’re going to just play it by ear today. My parents love her and think she’s adorable.”

“Oh good. I hate that we’re imposing on them.”

“He doesn’t care. My dad loves entertaining guests and he loves having little kids around. You know he calls himself ‘the baby whisperer.’”

Ben laughed, groggily. “I’ve never met your father, but that sounds like him.”

“Who knows him better than me? Well, anyway, I’m going to call down to your building to see if anybody will tell me if the furnace was fixed, yet.”

“I probably should have invested in some space heaters by now.”

“Yeah, that might be a good idea when you get back.”

“Definitely. Okay, I’ll check in later with you.”

“Okay. Have a good time at the convention.”

“Thanks. Tell Scar I love her and we’ll Skype tonight.”

“I will. Bye.”

* * *

Ben hung up the phone and reached over the back of the hot mid-western blonde he had met last night. She stirred and lifted her head, opening her eyes to focus on him. “Hi,” she murmured. “Who was that?”

“I just called my baby-sitter,” he said, slipping a hand up her bare ribcage. “Everything’s fine.” He pressed a kiss into her lips and she melted into him, cupping her breast, the nipple hardening under his thumb. 

“Mmm,” she purred, pulling away. “Look, I need to brush my teeth.”

“Baby, no,” he murmured. “Look, I don’t mind-”

She pulled out of the bed and slipped into the bathroom, naked, making him groan. He sat up in bed and grabbed his phone again, reading his emails. He had some political give-our-super-PAC-money garbage in his inbox, which he promptly deleted, and then a few from NYU and the New School. He got a picture message from Alexis of Scarlett laying on the couch in her father’s house with her legs crossed. He grinned to himself, and saved it. He went to his pictures, to discover selfies of Scarlett. She had taken over thirty of them at really bad angles of herself, which made him laugh aloud. 

“What’cha looking?” the blonde asked from the doorway. She was now in a bathrobe and Ben realized he didn’t really know her name.

“My kid. She took a bunch of selfies on my phone. And so it begins!”

She grimaced and came over to the bed. “She’s cute,” she noted, almost sounding robotic and monotonous. 

“She’s my honeybee,” Ben admitted, slipping an arm around her back. She pulled away.

“Look, I’ve got to get to my agent’s meeting at eight. I’ll see you in little while, okay?”

Ben felt a growing dissatisfaction with his choice in woman he took home last night. “Well, sure,” he said.

He flopped back down into the bed and closed his eyes, while listening to her shuffle about the room to get dressed. He started to recognize how chilly the room was, regardless of the thermostat.

A little while later, she left, wordlessly.

He fell back asleep, but his phone alarm went off at eight. He got out of bed and directly into a hot shower to warm up. It felt like heaven from the cold air of the city. He had yet to get used to living in the North.

He got a cup of coffee and a bagel at the continental breakfast and went down to the convention center to meet with his agent at his booth. They had a long conversation about the second draft edits for the ARCs on his next book, and what to expect with Penguin. Penguin wanted bigger sales with his next novel, otherwise, they weren’t going to negotiate for another contract after his third book, so a lot was riding on this second book. He didn’t want to be a bad bet with other publishing houses. Penguin was not going to invest any more money into advertising his third novel if he couldn’t get better sales on the up-coming book.

The day flashed by as he sat through a session listening to one of his favorite biopic writers talk about research, and then went to another session with another writer talking about plot-building.

After a late lunch with his agent and two other writers he represented, Ben spent the afternoon at his booth, signing copies of his book for the few readers who came by. This whole book festival was turning out to be a bust for him.

By the time he took the stage to talk about character development that night, the audience was mostly empty.

This was not turning out well.

The next morning, he checked out and caught a flight back to New York. Alexis had told him over Skype that they haven’t repaired his apartment building’s furnace completely, and his apartment was still so cold they couldn’t go in without gloves. Ben knew he had to get after his super if this shit wasn’t getting fixed and he was paying $2500 a month for this apartment. The other residents were dealing better than he was; space heaters and their fireplaces’ flues were open. He arrived, knowing he’d need to get to Alexis’ place in the next few hours to pick up Scarlett, but first, he needed to make sure his apartment was warm enough for her to stay there.

He stopped at the front desk, and asked to talk to the super.

The man came upstairs and tossed the dirty oil-stained rag onto the front desk. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m in number 406, and I just went up there; it’s so cold my daughter and her babysitter couldn’t stay in it. The damper to the fireplace isn’t even open to build a fire.”

“Build a what?” he asked. “Speak clearly, yo!”

Ben groaned, irritated. His accent wasn’t that bad, he spoke pretty clearly for a Southerner, had never had complaints about his accent from any of his students before. He dropped his accent as best as he could. “The flue to my fireplace isn’t open, so there was no way to keep my apartment warm enough to be habitable. Can you get it open if the furnace isn’t going to be working well enough in the next twenty-four hours?”

“Furnace is fixed, buddy.”

“When my thermostat is set to sixty-eight and it’s down to fifty-two in my apartment, I wouldn’t call that fixed. I’d appreciate it if you’d just confirm if the flue is clean enough for me to get the damper open.”

“I keep my building in working order, son,” he snapped.

“Fine. Thank you,” he muttered, and went upstairs to try to open the damper before he went to get Scarlett. While looking up a cobwebbed shaft, he discovered it was a cap on top of the roof. Groaning, he took an extra cinder block and went upstairs to prop the door open so he could try and locate his own before the sun went down. To his absolute luck, he discovered that the chimney pipes were labeled with the apartment numbers, a few were billowing thin jets of smoke out. He only hoped there wasn’t a buildup of creosote in there. The damper was frozen shut, so he had to chip away at the ice. He managed to get the ice off, and opened it.  There. He’d call in the damn chimney sweeper himself in if he had to.

He wiped his sooty hands off on a dish cloth in his apartment and deposited his suitcase into his bedroom, getting out the present he had bought for Alexis.

She had texted him her address, and he took the subway to Tribeca to find them.

It was a bit overwhelming to know that he was going to a best-selling author’s apartment. It was pretty intimidating to look up at the skyline and see the top-floor apartment with it’s beautiful giant windows from the street. This man’s estimated net worth was over two-hundred million since the Nikki Heat books took off like they did. And he had just married the inspiration for Nikki Heat herself. Alexis lived such a plush life, he knew she was only taking this job for the experience, not the money, but she didn’t seem to have any judgment and was a great caretaker for Scarlett. He swallowed his nerves. He could gun down Al Qaeda terrorists without batting an eyelash, but meeting someone who pretty much knew everyone in the publishing industry in New York? Who could make-or-break him if he made a bad impression? Yeah, that was no small order. Hopefully Scarlett had behaved for them.

He entered the building, and checked in with the doorman, a little grisled, white-haired old man with a smile that made him look like a little boy again, who wore a nametag that said, HERB. “Hi, Ben Haversham, I’m here to pick up my daughter from the Castles?”

“Right away,” he said. He dialed up, and Ben wished he had someone this friendly as his super who actually did his job. There was a buzzing. “Okay, they’re ready for you to go up. Sixth floor, got it?”

Ben went to the elevator bank to go up. This building was very nice; the elevator was clean and polished, like a hotel. The door to their apartment was open slightly. He knocked on it as he entered. “Hello?”

“Daddy!” Scarlett came racing out and jumped on him in a hug. “Daddy! I missed you!”

It felt good to hold his little girl in his arms again. “Oh, I missed you too! It was a long weekend!”

“I went to- I went to the west-a-want with A-wexa and we had shepahd’s pie and mac and  feta,”  she pronounced the word carefully.

“You ate something with vegetables in it?” Ben asked disbelievingly. What had Alexis done to his daughter?

“She liked it,” Alexis announced, coming around the corner. “But she kept on asking for McDonald’s before we went.”

“Where did you go?’

“The Old Haunt? My dad’s place.”

“Is he here? Can I meet him?”

“Oh, sure, but- you’ve got dirt on your face.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, just a second, let me go get a paper towel. Come in, sit down!”

He entered the living room to discover something that looked like an upscale version of a Las Vegas Villa. “This is where you spent the weekend?” he asked Scarlett.

“Yah. He had all the games and we pwayed!”

“He had  Halo ?”

“Uh-huh!”

Alexis came into the room with a damp paper towel and bent down to wipe his face off. He flush of embarrassment at her touch: she was really gentle, despite his scratchy beard growth that was enough to keep him warm. “I’m so sorry about my apartment, that’s… so embarrassing. But you get what you pay for, I guess.”

“It’s not legal what they’re doing,” Alexis said. She drew the paper towel away and it was caked in black.

“Yeah, I was trying to open the damper, there’s not one  in my apartment, it’s on the pipe on the roof, so I had to pry that open, and it was frozen shut.”

“Yeah, I think that’s what this is,” Alexis said.

“I hope it’s not clogged or anything. I’m probably going to sleep in the living room tonight with one eye open, listening for signs of creosole fires.”

“Be careful,” Alexis said.

The door to the room beside the TV opened and Richard Castle himself walked out. “Hi-”

“This is Ben,” Alexis said, introducing him. “Scarlett’s father.”

“Oh, Ben, I just read  A Murder In the Capital when Alexis got the baby-sitting job.” 

Ben felt terribly embarrassed suddenly; he had hacked out that book in a hurry before he was deployed for the first time, mimicking all the schlock fiction books he had devoured while waiting for his mother to pass in hospice. He cringed when he read it, now. “Oh... you did?”

“You say that like it’s disgusting,” Castle chuckled.

“It kind of is,” Ben muttered.

“I’d introduce you to my wife, but she’s taking a nap. Apparently, keeping up with your daughter wore her out.”

“Did she misbehave?”

“No! Your little girl was a joy. Such a sweetie,” Castle said. “We loved having her.”

“You’re talking about my kid, right?” Ben joked.

“Daddy!” Scarlett cried.

“Do you two want to stay for dinner?” he asked.

“No, we told want to hold Alexis up,” Ben said.

“Yes, I’ve got a study group in about an hour,” Alexis said, “I’ve got to get up to campus.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ben said. “Are we on for Tuesday?”

“Sure are,” Alexis said. “I brought Scarlett’s things down, they’re by the door.”

“Thanks,” he said.  “Come on, Scar, let’s get back home and get some firewood. We’re gonna make a fire!”

“Yay!” Scarlett cried, hopping up from the couch.


	5. 2nd Chance at Surviving in a Freezer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle or the characters.

“I’m so happy I finally got to meet your new boss,” Castle said to Alexis.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t,” Kate said, coming into the kitchen to pour a glass of wine. “She wore me out!”

“Come on, admit it, Beckett, you want five just like her!” Castle teased.

“I don’t know if I have that many baby-making years left in me,” Kate joked.

“I told you guys she was fun,” Alexis said.

“She’s a lot like you when you were that age,” he said. She knew her father was thinking back to her childhood. “Cute and precocious and that little accent…”

“I didn’t have an accent!” Alexis cried.

“Yeah, you couldn’t pronounce your r’s right either, but you didn’t have trouble with your w’s,” he said. “It was just… adorable. You charmed everyone with it.”

“Well, I guess she and I have a lot in common,” Alexis admitted. “Being raised by single fathers…. good taste in children’s books?”

“Oh, sure,” Castle said.

“They’ve got every one Neil Gaiman’s books at their house. She loves Blueberry Girl and the  Chu series. They’re her favorites.”

“You know, I really like Ben,” Castle admitted. “He has a lot of growing to do with his writing, but I think he’ll be okay. He seemed a little nervous when I came over.”

“I think he looks up to you,” Alexis admitted. “He’s a lot like you, you know.”

“Now wait a second, Alexis, I don’t know about that,” Castle said.

“Oh, it’s true, I can see it on paper,” Kate said. “Young, single dad and a successful writer-”

“He’s not that successful,” Castle snorted.

“He’s not?” Alexis asked.

“Well, seriously, he’s not. Not yet. He’s only published one book, and it did pretty poorly.”

“Oh…” Alexis muttered.

“Well, some writers, it takes them years to build a fanbase, and then success comes,” he explained. “I’m going to bed, we’ve got work in the morning.”

“And I’ve got another paper in sociology to write,” Alexis said. “Good night!”

The next two days went by like normal, and on Tuesday, she went to Ben and Scarlett’s apartment. They had gotten small bundle of firewood at one of the bodegas, and there was a small fire in the fireplace heating the apartment.

“Just feed it one log every hour, but not too fast. You don’t want it burning up all the wood before I get home,” Ben said. “I’ll pick up some more before I get back. Same rules apply. Scar?”

The little girl hopped up on a chair and assumed the position. “Best behaviah?” she asked.

“Exactly.” He bent down and kissed her. “Goodnight.”

Once Ben left the room, Alexis got out a baggie with six giant marshmallows and a Hershey’s bar. “Guess what we’re going to make for dessert?” she asked.

“Candy?” Scarlett asked.

“No, s’mores,” Alexis said. “You’ve got the graham crackers!”

Once they had spaghetti and meatballs, Alexis got out a coat hanger and unfurled it so they could roast marshmallows. “Okay, lesson number one, you’ll know how to do this the first time you go camping,” Alexis said, putting a giant marshmallow onto the hanger. She moved the screen and held it out over the flames. “We never play in the fire, but… we’re going to roast these and then…” she arranged the chocolate on top of one of the graham crackers. She finally caught the marshmallow on fire.

“It’s on fiyah!” Scarlett cried.

Alexis quickly blew it out. “Perfect!” She caught the marshmallow between the two grahams. “Here. Try it.”

Scarlett eagerly took the treat and took a bite of it. “Mmm!” she cried. “It’s good!”

“I’m going to make one for myself,” Alexis said, putting together some chocolate and graham crackers before sticking a fresh marshmallow onto the hanger. 

Once they had eaten all the supplies, they watched some of the  Fairly Odd Parents and Alexis gave her bath to put her to bed. Scarlett didn’t fight it once the book was read. Alexis gave her a hug and a kiss good-night.

“We’re gonna eat moah s’moahs tomowoh?”

“Thursday night, yes,” Alexis said, tucking her in.

“If Daddy died, would you be my mommy?”

“What? Why are you thinking about something happening to your daddy? Nothing’s going to happen to him.”

“All the stow-ees.”

“What stories?”

“Cindah-werrah, Snow White, Hansah and Gweta…”

“Oh, honey, those are only fairy tales. People don’t die as much as they used to, and nothing’s going to happen to him,” Alexis said. It was normal for kids to entertain that thought about their parents suddenly dying, or to think about according to her childhood psychology class. Hopefully, Scarlett wasn’t going to get fixated on the idea. She herself had had this panic last summer. True, she was an adult now, but losing a parent still gave one a sense of terror and hopelessness that got you’d be lost in the world. “Look, I will be the first person in line to take care of you if something happened to him. There’s no reason to be scared.” She kissed Scarlett on the forehead. “Good night.”

“I wove you,” Scarlett said, sounding a little scared.

“I love you, too,” Alexis said, switching out the light.

“A-wexa?”

“Yes, baby?”   
“I don’t have my bwankie.”

“I haven’t seen it. Where do you think it is?”

“Daddy’s woom.”

“I’ll go get it,” Alexis said, getting up. She went to the other bedroom and flipped on the lights. She saw the pink baby blanket peeking out of the unmade bed covers and pulled it out, open to see something under the sheets; a slightly crumpled printed out letter from Hanson Literary addressed to Ben.

She only saw one line;  you’ve got to do a better job connecting to fans and bring new ones in.

That was definitely not meant for her eyes. She threw the blankets back over it and took the baby blanket back to Scarlett’s room.

* * *

Ben stopped off at the bodega once he got off the subway near his house to buy another couple of pallets of firewood. Any real spaceheater was going to run up the electric bill, so he ran the few they had as little as possible. As he entered his apartment, there was a flyer about a tenant’s association meeting. It was probably going to be nothing but tenants complaining about the how cold the building was.

In his apartment, Alexis was sitting on the couch, the fire was starting to die. She looked up when he entered the room. “Hi,” she said, smiling. He loved that little dimple. “She’s sleeping just fine. No troubles tonight.”

“Good,” he said, setting the palettes of wood down, opening one up to feed to the fire. “I sure could go for a beer. You want one?”

“Yeah, drinking on the job is frowned upon,” Alexis said, packing up her books.

“You’re off the clock,” he said, standing up, dusting his hands off on his jeans. He went to the kitchen to get the beers from the fridge. When he got back, she was still on the couch. “Here,” he said, offering one to her. She accepted it.

“So are you evening classes at the New School going better?” she asked.

“Yeah, kind of,” he admitted, sitting down on the couch with her. “The few in there, they really like writing. And that’s the best part of writing in general, finding others that love it like you do.”  

She took a sip of her beer. “Well, it’s also building a brand. I’ve watched my father do it, but he’s got a lot of personality.”

“Yeah, he does,” Ben agreed. “But people actually read his books, first.”

“Well, he was well-known in the gossip columns,” Alexis added in.

“I don’t know how he did it if he had a kid at home,” he muttered.

“Oh, he did it. It was called ‘baby-sitters’.”

“If I wanted to put you through college, maybe,” Ben joked. “You know, I wrote that book when I couldn’t get anyone to read the first novel I wrote, so I wrote a really awful book. It was every formulaic trope I ever read in paperback schlock mystery fiction. I sorta wrote it for shits and giggles, and queried it. And what do you know? I got representation. And now, they want me to duplicate it twice more, according to my contract at Penguin.”

“There’s nothing to it,” Alexis said, rolling her eyes. “Dad used to write bodice-ripper romance novels for Harlequinn to make ends meet under a penname. It kept me in diapers, and it made a good name for him. Those are the most formulaic novels you’ll ever read, he did it. And if you were writing formula mystery fiction, you can do this again. Just get through it, and then, once you have a name for yourself, you’ll get to publish the book you wrote that nobody wanted to represent. Look, I know the publishing industry, I grew up around it.”   
“It’s a lot more than that,” he said. “They want me to do things like promote myself better. I’m not the most out-going person, though.”

“Yeah? Just hire a publicist. Dad did it. It helped.”

“I’ll think about it.” He groaned. “I’ve got a break from edits for the holidays, but come January… they’re gonna let me have it.”

“You’ve got more education than my dad did,” Alexis said, swallowing another mouthful of beer. “He dropped out of college his senior year at Columbia. He got published, there was no turning back, well for him. He and my mom were already pregnant with me.”

Ben’s eyebrows raised.

“I was a surprise. And I think it was the reason he married her.”

“I’m assuming it didn’t last.”

“It didn’t.”   
“Where’s your mom, then?”

“West coast. Malibu. She remarried a few times. I don’t know how permanent this husband is, but, the good news is, he’s a director. That’ll help her career.”   
Alexis’ family story sounded eerily like his own with Chloe. “What do you know about Scarlett’s mother?”   
“Well, I was assuming you’d tell me in time,” Alexis said. 

“The last thing I heard about her was that she was a backup singer for a country music star,” he said. “She has dreams of being the next Faith Hill or Shania Twain, I guess. I didn’t know her super-well.”   
“But you fathered a child with her?”

“Yes, I did. By accident. I had just sold my first book and I was partying it up on Broadway in Nashville with a couple of my buddies, and I shipped out the next day to Afghanistan. I didn’t even remember her, but she remembered me. Then, I came home eight months later, and guess what met me on the runway? An out-to-there girl who said her name was Chloe and she was having my baby.”

Alexis looked shocked.

“I didn’t believe her, but I said okay to a DNA test and I was the daddy. I found out right as she went into labor, and somebody put this little baby in my hands, and… yeah, I knew she was mine.”

“Were you the one that named her?”

“Yeah. Chloe had the dumbest, most God-awful name picked out; Zahora Dora.”

“Yeah, that makes no sense as a name,” Alexis agreed. “Scar told me her middle name was Roselyn-”

Ben laughed. “She can’t say it right,” he admitted. “I named her after Rose Walker in  the Sandman comics and Scarlett O’Hara. Her middle name is Rosewalker.”

“It’s adorable when she tries to say it,” Alexis said.

“Yeah, she’s just cute all around… when she’s not being a little shit,” he admitted.

“Would you and the little shit be against coming to Thanksgiving Dinner at my place?”

Ben was a little taken aback by her invitation. “Uh… it sounds really nice, but… “

“I just figured, you don’t have family and if you had plans to send her out to see her mother, she’d have probably told me about it by now,” she said. “I was just being polite. Nobody should have to spend Thanksgiving… without other people.”

“Well, we’ve gotten by the last two years with deli turkey sandwiches.”

“My dad usually gets a giant twenty-pound turkey and we eat leftovers until Cheistmas. You’d be welcome.”

“Okay. We’ll come to your Thanksgiving.”

“Alright. I’m heading out. Goodnight.”

“Wait a second,” Ben said, seeing the snow globe on one of the bookshelves. He stood up. “I forgot to give you this on Sunday, but… here.” He grabbed the snow globe of Chicago that was so small it fit into his hand.

“Aww,” she said, grinning. “Thank you! It’s cute!”

“Glad you like it.”

“Have a good night,” she said. “Bye!”


	6. 1st Attempts at Thanksgiving Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle.

It was next to impossible to get a cab on Thanksgiving in New York, which made Ben’s attempt at transporting two bottles of wine, unbaked homemade biscuits, a container of green bean casserole, and rambunctious three-year-old to Tribeca even harder. Scarlett was easy to lose in a crowd, a thought which terrified him. He honestly thought about putting her on a leash sometimes, no matter how ridiculous it looked. He considered something really difficult: taking his truck out in Manhattan. He didn’t like getting stuck in traffic, especially considering he still had Tennessee license tags: that was making himself a target for asshole New York drivers to harass.

He sent Alexis a text about how hard logistics were going to be and if there was guest parking at her father’s apartment building, he was considering driving over.

We’ve got plenty of guest parking in the basement level. You shouldn’t have volunteered to bring so many things. ;)

In Tennessee, volunteering to bring so much wasn’t a problem. He had a GPS on his phone (which he rarely used, since it ate up his data plan), so he bundled Scarlett up in a coat over her adorable blue plaid Thanksgiving dress he found at Goodwill and a hat and mismatching gloves, and took her downstairs to the basement garage, where he put her in her carseat in the back, setting down the wine. “Daddy will be back soon,” he promised, locking her in the car with the engine and the radio on. He went back to the fourth floor to get the casserole and the biscuits in their tins and the spare key so he could unlock the car. Scarlett was singing along with Bruno Mars in the backseat. He squeezed his little girl’s knee as he checked his blindspot and backed out. “Alright, Honeybee, we’re going to Alexa’s for Thanksgiving!”

“Yeah!”

He followed the GPS voice on his phone to the Castle’s address, getting cut off twice, and had the GPS guide him away from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade route, too. He had to circle the block twice to find the garage entrance to the building. He had to punch the intercom button and stick his head out into the freezing cold. 

“Hello?” Castle answered.

“Hey, it’s me, Ben.”

There was a buzzing sound and the metal garage door began opening. “Look for the guest parking section, it should be on the wall on the north end of the garage.”

“Thanks.”

He located guest parking beside a Ferrari, and it was Alexis who met them in the garage. She looked beautiful in a shiny, teal tea-length dress. Scarlett squealed when she spotted her and undid the latch on her carseat to get out of the truck. “A-wexa!” She climbed over the armrest in the front seat, and Alexis opened the passenger door. Scarlett leapt out into her arms for a hug like she hadn’t seen Alexis on Tuesday.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Scarlett,” Alexis said, kissing her.

“Hi,” Ben said, waving at her from the driver’s seat. 

“I’m here for help so you don’t have to make multiple trips. Dad’s not accepting any help in the kitchen yet, just a warning, don’t even try past one offer.”

“Noted. Can you get the wine?”

“Sure,” she said. “And the little monkey.”

“Thank you.” He managed to balance the casserole and the biscuits and followed Alexis into the building.

“Did Daddy let you help with making the biscuits?”

“Uh-huh,” Scarlett said.

“Hit the ‘up’ button,” Alexis said, leaning down so Scarlett could reach it. “Good girl! So, you’re going to get to meet my grandma. The ‘Grande Dame’ of broadway. At least she thinks she is. You can call her ‘Miss Martha’ okay, Scar?”

“O-tay.”

The elevator arrived and they took it up to the top floor. The entire top floor smelled delicious as they entered. “Hey, Dad?” Alexis called.

“They’re here?”

“Yeah, they are,” Alexis called back, setting Scarlett down, who scampered off.

“You look amazing,” Ben said to Alexis quietly. “I didn’t tell you downstairs, but you do.”

She looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly.

He took the food to the kitchen, where Castle was bent over a giant turkey, basting it. “Welcome to Thanksgiving, Castle-style,” he said. “Go make yourself a drink, enjoy yourself in the living room. I don’t need any help, promise! You are our guests.”

“I will, thank you,” Ben said. He went into the living room, where Alexis was making a drink for Scarlett at the minibar, and Detective Beckett was sitting on the couch with an older man, talking about football over a tablet.

“...I really think St. Louis is going to come through, Dad,” Beckett was saying. “Ten cents.”

“Are y’all making bets on the football games?” Ben asked.

“Yep,” Beckett answered. “You wanna join in?”

“I’ll bet on the Titans to  lose ,” Ben joked.

“Yeah, they’ve really sucked this year,” Beckett agreed. “But they’re not playing until Sunday.”

“Although they had a good game two weeks ago,” the man he assumed to be Beckett’s father said.

“They did,” Ben agreed. 

“Ben, do you want something to drink?” Alexis asked as Scarlett very carefully brought over a glass with a shirley temple in it.

“Put that on the coffee table, on a coaster,” Ben ordered. “Yeah, do you have a beer?”

“Of course,” Alexis said, opening the fridge. “We’ve got some St. Pauli Girl and a Sweetwater IPA.” 

“St. Pauli Girl,” Ben said. “Thank you.”

“Oh, Ben, this is my father, Jim,” Beckett said. “I’m sorry I missed you when we kept Scarlett.”

“No, I understand,” Ben said. “Thank you for having us today.”

“Our pleasure,” Beckett said.

“Here,” Alexis said, offering him a beer glass and an opened bottle of beer.

“Thank you.”

They spent a while watching football while Scarlett colored in a brand-new coloring book with a new box of crayons that Alexis provided her. At one point, Scarlett asked Alexis if she’d take her to the potty, and Alexis obliged.

“I just wonder, with Scarlett… where’s her mother?” Jim Beckett asked.

“Da-ad!” Beckett cried, embarrassed.

“She works on the road,” Ben said. “She sings back-up for ah… have you heard of Harland Williams?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him,” Jim said.

“She hasn’t really exercised any desire in the last two years to revisit the custody arrangement,” Ben explained. “The last time we revisited the custody arrangement back in Tennessee, she didn’t show up to court and I got full custody of her by default. So it’s just Scar and me in the big city.”

“How long have you been here?”

“We moved here in August,” he said. “It was a last-minute job offer, and the rent-controlled apartment came through like magic and… well…”

“Rent controlled?” Jim asked, surprised. “That is pretty lucky!”

“Yeah, although we’ve got to ask the question if it’s worth it or not. For the last two weeks, the building’s furnace has been really weak.”

“Alexis told us about that,” Beckett said.

“Yeah, there’s been some talk about going co-op,” Ben admitted. “We didn’t really have that in Tennessee, I don’t really know what that means.”

“Co-op? That’s a big change,” Beckett said, surprised.

“What does it mean?” Ben asked. “I haven’t gotten a chance to really research it--”

“Co-op basically means that the building becomes it’s own non-profit corporation and the tenants are the shareholders,” Jim said. “I’ve dealt with real estate law.”

“Like the building would go from apartments to condominiums?” Ben asked.

“Well, sort of. But most of the time with condominiums, you don’t get a say in who moves into the building,” Jim explained. “Usually the tenants create committees of residents for things like maintenance, building beautification, uh, new resident approval committee, a treasury committee…” Jim counted off the items. 

“We lived in a co-op when I was growing up,” Kate explained.

“They can kick you out if the residents think you’re not good for the community, too,” Jim said, grimacing. Beckett sighed and patted her father’s knee.

“I guess that means I’m going to have to stop those loud parties with all the prostitutes and kilos of cocaine,” Ben joked.

“Well, it could mean your rent could go up, but it also means the furnace could get replaced faster,” Jim said. “You might be able to get something done if you’re not happy with your super.”

“Trust me, I’m not,” Ben said. “He mocks my accent and told me the damper in my unit was open, but I went to the roof and opened it myself.”

“He outright lied to you? Do you understand that you could have started a fire in your apartment with that bad information?”

“Yeah, I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” Ben admitted.

“I would suggest finding a new apartment or go with the people talking about going co-op,” Beckett admitted. “Let’s call that what it is: it’s bullshit.”

“I’m not even sure if the chimney pipe is clean. I’ve thought about hiring a chimney sweep myself.”   
“I’d say go co-op,” Beckett said. “You’d be able to fire that super and hire somebody competent.”

Alexis came back into the room with Scarlett.

“Your building’s going co-op?” Alexis asked.

“I’m finding out what going co-op means,” Ben said. “There’s been some gossip around the building, that’s all. I’m a stranger in a strange land, it’s all Greek to me.”

Jim laughed. “I’m sure New York is like another country when you first get here.”

“Yeah, it sort of is,” Ben agreed.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in your apartment, and really do think going co-op would be your best bet,” Alexis said. “I think a lot of the improvements you need aren’t going to happen until you have more say than the landlords. The whole thing with the damper and the fireplace, that sounds so dangerous.”

“Maybe I should just move?”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good apartment at a good price in Manhattan?” Beckett asked. “Especially a two-bedroom?”

The front door opened again. “Hello everyone!” a lady called.

“Grams!” Alexis cried, jumping up from the couch.

“Martha,” Beckett said, getting up. “Hi!”

“Martha Rogers is a lot to handle, but we make an effort to get along,” Jim whispered to Ben. Ben nodded. “She’s a legend in her own mind.”

“Got it.”

A beautiful and mature, statuesque redhead walked into the room. Ben knew where Alexis got her red hair from, now. “This must be Benjamin! Hello!” she sang, entering the room. “Oh darling, it’s so nice to meet you!”   
“Nice to meet you, too,” Ben said, standing up to shake her hand, but instead, she hugged him, to his surprise. “This is my daughter, Scarlett-”

“Oh, Alexis has told me all about you!” Miss Martha said, bending over to get a better look at Scarlett. “You are lovely, young lady.”   
“Tank you,” Scarlett said. “You have wed hayah. Like A-wexa.”

“She gets it from me,” Miss Martha said proudly.

Alexis emerged from the kitchen. 

“Are you sure you don’t need any help in there?” Ben asked.

“No, not in the kitchen, but Dad’s starting to crack, I know him,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Come on, we can set the table.”

They started pulling the fine china and silver from the cabinets. Ben suddenly felt lost. Sure, the marine corps had taught him  how to eat with good manners, but doing a proper table setting was not something he was prepared for.

He watched Alexis set one setting, and she looked up. “Do you know how to set a formal table?” Alexis asked.

“Um… not quite,” he admitted.

“Here,” she said. “There’s no fish knife or fork, so that simplifies things, but we have a salad fork and a dinner fork,” she pulled the items and set them beside the big gold plate. “Just remember to move from the outside in as you’re using these place settings,” she added in. “And we’ve got a soup spoon and a dinner knife.”

“I know that much,” he said.

“And then, the dinner plate,” she set it into the middle of the giant gold one.

“Wait a second, isn’t that the dinner plate?” he asked.

“No, it’s the charger,” Alexis said. “And you put the salad plate ontop of the dinner place. Usually, if you had a soup course, you’d put the soup bowl on top of a soup plate instead of a salad plate.”

“Wait a second, where did you learn all this?”

“Cotillion,” Alexis said knowingly. “And north-west of the plate is the bread plate, and the butter knife, and across from that, directly north of the plate, is the dessert spoon and fork. And to the north east of the place… water goblet, red wine glass, and the white wine glass.”

She set them up in a diagonal.

Ben quickly memorized it all. “Where does the napkin go?” They set up the table carefully and he noted a picture in the corner of the bureau: it was a red-headed little girl in a traditional Irish step dance outfit. “Is this you?” he asked, grinning. 

“Ugh, yes,” she laughed. “I used to do Irish Step dance when I was little girl.”

“That’s adorable!” he cried. “You were so cute! How old were you here?”

“Seven. I think. I danced for years until I decided on fencing instead,” she admitted. “Haven’t you always wondered why my right thigh is bigger than my left?”

Ben had noticed, even though it wasn’t really obvious. “Well, I don’t really look, because that would be inappropriate as your boss, Alexis,” he said seriously, hoping to get a laugh out of her. And she did smile.

“Okay that was really dumb of me to ask. It’s been a few years and it’s not as noticeable as it used to be, but that’s what fencing does to the body because you always lead with with your right leg.”

“Why’d you quit?”

“Oh…” She shook her head. “I wanted to have an extra-curricular sport the first year I started at Marlowe Prep, and there was no Irish Step Feis Team, but there was a fencing team, so I went with that for the college résumé.”

“When was that?”

“Age twelve. Seventh grade. I kind of wish I had continued with it,” she said. “But it just didn’t fit into my schedule. But I fit in really well at the all Feis I competed in.”

“AKA, the red-head-convention?”

Alexis laughed. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“You know my paternal grandmother was Irish,” Ben said. “Like, from Londonderry-type Irish. I did Step until age eleven.”

“You did?” Alexis cried, surprised. 

He nodded. “My grandmother was so proud when I danced for them in London in the summer and when they got tje news I placed in competitions.”

“Why did you stop?” 

“The boys at school teased me about being Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance... so I quit. But I wish I hadn’t, my Gran wasn’t so happy about it.”

“My Grams’ family were Irish Travelers,” she said.

“You’re part gypsy?” Ben asked, surprised.

“Yeah, only a few of them were. Gram grew up in a carnie family in Coney Island,” she said, laughing. “She learned how to scam people at an early age. Becoming an actress and a single mother at age nineteen a step  up from her parent’s home, if you can believe that.”

He laughed. “She seems like a really interesting lady,” Ben noted.

“Are you going to start Scarlet on Step soon?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s expensive, and she’s so young…”

“I was four when I started,” Alexis said. “Think about it. I think my Step teacher still teaches here in lower Manhattan.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good. I’ll be there at her first Feis if she does.”

* * *

Alexis helped Scarlett into her booster seat at the table while everybody was sitting down with their plates. “Daddy will be here with your plate in just a moment.” She put a bib on her so she didn’t ruin her pretty dress. Ben had done a good job of finding a dress at Goodwill for her; had Scarlett not told her, she’d have thought it was from a department store.

Ben set a plate in front of Scarlett, who wrinkled her nose. “Please, eat. Don’t embarrass me!” he whispered, cutting up her food into bite-sized pieces.

“Kids are kids, we understand,” Alexis said, going to the kitchen for her own plate. “You sit beside Scarlett, I’ll sit across from you beside Dad. There is no way we’re seating Gram and Jim beside each other.” She whispered to him. Scarlet had picked up her fork and was carefully stabbing the plain turkey, no gravy, with the tines. She carefully put the bite of turkey into her mouth. She was doing so well with it!

Alexis made a plate for herself in the kitchen and grabbed one of the bottles of pinot noir with a cloth dinner napkin wrapped around the neck to keep it from dripping. “Anybody want red wine?”

“I would,” her stepmother said. 

“Count me in!” Martha said, setting her own plate down. “Both, please!”

“Me too,” her father said. She poured each of them a glass, and then one for herself, putting it out on the table, and then got the chilled white wine out to pour for all the adults, minus Jim. Jim had a ginger ale, and Scarlett had another shirley temple to drink. By then, everyone had come to the table. “Thanks, sweetheart,” Castle said, taking his seat at the head of the table. “Scarlett, are you doing okay?

“Yes, suh,” Scarlett replied.

“You’re eating really well,” Alexis noticed. “I’m proud of you, good girl!”

“What dis?” Scarlett asked, pointing at the sweet potato casserole Beckett had made.

“Sweet potatoes,” Ben said. “Are you going to be a big girl and try it?”

“Yes, suh, I wiw,” she said, clumsily digging her fork in to get some on it.

“Is it good?” Ben asked as she managed to get it into her mouth.

“Mmm-hmm!” Scarlett cried.

“I’m so proud of my big girl, trying new things!” Alexis cried, and then realized she had referred to Scarlett as her own for a moment there. There was a moment of silence at the table from Beckett conversing with her father about the football game happening between the Lions and the Bears, but everything went back to normal. 

“I think this is perfect,” Martha announced. “The perfect-sized Thanksgiving party and we’ve got the perfect amount of food, and new dishes to try, and new people- just right! I remember when it was just the three of us and we’d go to a show on Broadway that evening after dinner! This is much nicer.”

“I agree, Mother,” Castle said. “I’m happy Alexis invited the two of you over for Thanksgiving. Even if she didn’t ask.”

“Da-ad!”

“This is a really nice dinner,” Ben said. “And I learned how to set a formal table, too!”

“I gave him a crash course from Cotillion,” Alexis joked. 

The conversation descended into politics, and Alexis hoped Ben felt like he was in good company with how liberal her family was, but couldn’t tell by how quiet he was. Scarlett finished her turkey, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole, and asked for seconds, which was music to Ben’s ears. He refilled her plate in the kitchen and came back.

“I think it’s really shrewd of Obama to get the focus off the ACA by calling the do-nothing House to pass the immigration reform law right now,” Beckett was saying as he returned. “That was a master manipulation, kind of like Lincoln with changing the Civil War from a state’s right’s war to a war over slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation. Once it turned into that, any possible allies to the Confederacy abandoned them because of what slavery meant. Both presidents were incredibly brilliant.”

“Don’t mind my daughter,” Jim joked. “The only way she was able to get any respect in the police force was by becoming a super-liberal feminist.”

“We’re a bunch of liberals in this family,” Castle admitted.

“I may be from the South, but I can count to twenty without taking my shoes off. So they kinda kicked me out of the Tea Party for that.”

Everyone at the table burst out laughing at that zinger. Alexis was relieved. She had never conversed with him about his personal politics so far as she had known him. She was probably the most conservative person at this table as a Centrist. “I was kind of scared you were getting uncomfortable with the political discussion we just fell into,” Alexis said.

“No, I was just listening to see if anybody was a conservative at this table,” he said. “It’s not that I disrespect conservatives, I just read too many accredited sources to buy into a lot of what a majority of conservatives in my home state call ‘fact.’ I guess that’s why people who read more nonfiction books tend to be liberals than people who don’t.”

“Oh yeah,” Beckett agreed. “I have to keep my politics separate from my job because we go into Jersey and Long Island for investigations, but noticing what people read and believe as ‘fact’ when it comes to politics helps immensely with interviews. It shows me how gullible they are. You can get that kind of stuff out of people if you’re careful with your semantics and how you phrase questions.”

“She’s the master manipulator,” Castle said. “That’s why she’s such a good detective. She’s gotten me to admit to something I didn’t mean to a time or two.”

“You’ve gotten me to admit things a few times, though.”

“My girl is smart,” Castle said, grinning at Beckett across the table.

“Smart enough to put up with you,” she replied, returning the grin.

Alexis was getting a little nauseated at them. “So, Ben, you were telling me that Penguin wants you to reach more fans with your work,” Alexis said. “Dad, how did you do it?”

Ben threw her an annoyed look, but she shrugged.

“Actually, things have changed a lot since I started out,” Castle said. “When I started out, it was interviews, book tours, word of mouth. Now, we’ve got social media and the internet, like Twitter. And then there’s book blogs, online interviews, and chats. You’re on Twitter, right?”

Ben shook his head. “It seems like a lot of pressure,” he admitted. “Be entertaining in less than 140 characters?”

“Hey, we’re writers, it’s what we do, right?” Castle offered. “Just look at it like writing a poem: making a point in one sentence, not a whole paragraph.”

“You just gotta have a hook,” Alexis noted.

“Daddy?” Scarlett asked.

“Yes, sweetpea, are you finished?” Ben asked.

She nodded. “Can I have dessert?”

“It’s not ready yet,” Alexis said. “It’s still in the oven. It’s apple pie, I made it. We’re going to have it with ice cream.”

“But you’ve got to wait,” Ben added.

“A-wexa, can I sit in you lap?” Scarlett asked.

“Yes, that’s fine,” Alexis said. Scarlett hopped out of her booster seat and climbed into Alexis’ lap.

They continued the conversation about social media and advertising: Alexis had a lot of good ideas for a hook and ways to get followers. She suggested a book giveaway with a grand prize being a signed copy of his new book when it came out to drum up support and explained the rafflecopter app and book tours. Scarlett played with Alexis’ gold lavalier and cuddled into her. “A lot of authors in the Young Adult market do weekly vlogs on different subjects,” Alexis explained.

“Oh, I sort of avoid the camera,” Ben shrugged. “You think I’d do okay at it?”

“Just be yourself,” she said. “I used to have a vlog of my own, it got me in some trouble…”

“I can work wonders,” Martha said, pressing a hand to her chest.

“She does,” Alexis added in. She noticed Beckett was having a conversation with her father about something at the other end of the table.

“I teach stage presence,” Martha said. “Why don’t I work with you after dinner, Benjamin-”

“Oh, Miss Martha, I wouldn’t make you work on Thanksgiving.”

“Nonsense! It’s my passion, I love teaching acting!”

“Dad, isn’t that how you met my mother? She was one of Gram’s students from an acting class?”

Castle laughed. “Yeah, funny story about that. Wasn’t she your star pupil for a while, Mother?”

Martha sighed crankily. “ Was , Richard.  Was .”

“A-wexa, when it the dessert gonna be weady?” Scarlett asked.

“Soon, baby, soon,” Alexis said. “We can go check on it?”

“O-tay.”

Scarlett hopped up from Alexis’ lap and she took her into the kitchen to check the pie. They arrived just in time for the timer to go off. She pulled it out of the oven and put it out on top of the counter on a trivet. “We’re going to let it cool for a little while because right now, it’s too hot to eat.”

“Can I have another dwink?”

“Yes, let’s go make another one for you.” 

Alexis flipped the coffee maker on to start brewing and made another shirley temple and they returned to the dining room table. Most everyone was finished with their food, but it was Kate clearing the plates. “The good news is the pie is cooling off and it will be ready to eat in a few minutes,” she announced, setting Scarlett’s drink down on the table and taking her seat. Scarlett hopped back into her lap. “Coffee’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

“Anybody want some another glass of wine?” Castle asked, and Alexis heard a gasp out of Scarlett’s mouth before she felt the icy cold through her dress.

Scarlett had lost her grip on her shirley temple and it was spilled all over the teal dress Alexis was wearing. “Uh-oh!” Scarlett cried.

“Scar, what’s you do?” Ben asked, looking alarmed.

“We just had an accident,” Alexis said as Scarlett climbed out of her lap. “That’s my fault for letting her have another drink and sitting in my lap.” She stood up and dabbed at the wet stain on the dress.

“Oh, Alexis,” Ben said, looking horribly embarrassed. “I’m so sorry- this dress- it’s probably ruined-”

“It’s not a big deal,” Alexis said. “I think it’s machine washable-”

“I’ll pay for the dry cleaning if it’s not-”

“I sowwy!” Scarlett begged.

“Accidents happen, Scar. Let me go upstairs and get changed out of this.”

“We can soak it on the gentle cycle,” Castle said, mopping up the spilled shirley temple with his cloth napkin.

“Here we are,” Beckett said, returning from the kitchen with a roll of paper towels. Alexis went upstairs and changed out of the dress, checking the tag. It was indeed a machine washable dress, luckily, polyester fibers. She changed into a sweater and jeans and went downstairs to find the mess was cleaned up, and Scarlett was in her father’s lap, now, looking embarrassed. 

“There’s cold water in the washing machine right now,” Castle said. “I put some OxyClean in there for soaking, and some detergent?”

“Thanks, Dad,” Alexis said, going to the laundry room to deposit her dress into it. When she came back to her seat, the floor was sticky under her feet, but she didn’t say anything. 

“Coffee’s almost ready.”

“I can’t wait to cut into the dessert,” Castle said. “She’s always been an excellent baker.”

“You know, I learned how to make a really good butter pecan pie from my mother,” Ben said.

“That sounds really Southern,” Kate said.

“Yeah, it is, but Scarlett doesn’t like nuts. So far. So I can’t really make it.”

“What are your plans for Christmas?” Kate asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Just chill out by the fire, go see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center?”   
“Don’t spend it in the city, come to the Hamptons with us!” Kate cried. “It’ll be great!”

Ben looked a little weirded out being invited out like this. “Are you- are you sure?”

“Oh, it’ll be fun! The Hampton House is huge, there’ll be plenty of room for you,” Alexis said. “Dad, your decorator will have been there already, won’t she?”

“Actually, she’s going out there next weekend, we were going to go meet her for it.”

“It’s always really pretty out there, usually it snows. We don’t get out there for Christmas every year, but we agreed to it this year-”

“Yes, I can’t wait,” Martha said. “You have to come with us.”

“I’ll be driving out Christmas day,” Jim said.

“Come on, it’ll be fun,” Alexis said. “You can see the Rockefeller Christmas tree anytime during December.”

“You can make that butter pecan pie,” Kate said.

“Yes!” Alexis cried.

“Let me just take a look at our plans, and I’ll decide,” Ben said.

“Alright, just let us know soon,” Castle said.

Alexis was secretly delighted that her father had invited them to the Hamptons with them.

After they had dessert, Alexis put the washing machine on to run and they finished their coffees in the living room. Scarlett had liked the pie and ate all of it, and they had made a special cup of hot chocolate in the Keurig for her (which she did not spill this time). By now, everyone was tired and Scarlett was getting a little cranky from not having a nap. 

“I’m Scar home, she’s getting a little cranky, it’s past her bedtime,” Ben said. “Say goodbye to everybody, Honeybee.”

“Goodbye!” A-wexa, sowwy about the dwess!”

“It’s alright, sweet girl,” Alexis said, accepting a hug.

“No leftovers?” Kate asked.

“No, I’m good,” he said. “Goodnight everybody,”

Alexis walked them to the elevator and let them in. “Drive safely,” she said. “See you Tuesday night! Bye!”

“Goodnight,” Ben said. “Thank you for having us.”

Once they got into the elevator, Alexis went back to the apartment. Her dress came out of the washer without any stains left on it, thankfully. She put it up on a hanger to dry and she’d iron it later. It had survived Scarlett. 

“You know they’re talking about letting him go from Penguin if he can’t sell more copies of his second book than his first,” Castle said to her quietly as she helped with the kitchen clean-up.

She knew that he couldn’t afford to live in Manhattan if he was let go from one of the Big 5. “Oh… That’s a big deal.”

He nodded. “I really think he’s got a lot of potential. I mean, writing something that got nominated for a Pulitzer between tours of Afghanistan? I’d hate to see that wasted. And I’d hate to see Scarlett not see her father very much, either, because he’s working too much.”   
“Me too,” Alexis sighed. “I really love that kid.”

“It’s hard not to,” he agreed, drying a dish. “But he’s got to figure out publicity for himself.”

“True,” Alexis said. “But I wouldn’t just let them flounder.”

“I know you wouldn’t, sweetheart. Man, we’re so much like them.”

“Well, I think we turned out alright,” Alexis said. “Maybe that’s good news for them.”


	7. 1st Attempts at New Christmas Traditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does.

Alexis offered to ride to the Hamptons with Ben and Scarlett so she could give directions. Ben told her he was relieved to have her travelling with them when it came to bathroom breaks on the road. The first thing they stopped for was coffee.

Scarlett had her own playlist on Ben’s phone that Alexis actually liked that they listened to in the truck. Scarlett sang along with a lot of it, including _Everything Is Awesome_ from the Lego Movie and _Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots_ by the Flaming Lips. She had good taste in music so far, including Lisa Loeb and They Might be Giants as well.

“I can’t wait until she’s old enough for chapter audiobooks,” Ben said. “This playlist got really old while we were moving. I want to listen to the Harry Potter books on audio with her and Lord of the Rings and… everything. So many books I want to share with her that I loved when I was a kid.”

“That’s so sweet. But don’t discount the impact of reading to her at bedtime.”

“Oh, I don’t,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s when Dad read to me the most, before naps and bedtime. I absorbed more than he initially thought.”

“When did you start reading?”

“Dad says I was reading some basic books around the age of three,” she said. “I was reading chapter books by the time I was six. Scarlett can read a little bit already, I’ve noticed.”

“I’ve noticed that too, but I’m curious to see if it’s that she memorized the book or if she’s actually reading it.”

“Yeah, me too. Okay, take this exit, but stay in the farthest right lane, this is to the Long Island Expressway, we’re going to cruise here for a few hours.”

They stopped off from the expressway for a potty break for Scarlett. Being able to take Scarlett to the women’s restroom made things a lot easier. She could only imagine how hard it was for Ben to take her places, like an older mall, where there were no single toilets-restrooms or family restrooms, just giant sex-segregated ones. That was a frustration for a father raising a little girl that she had become all too familiar with as a child. It wasn’t abnormal for her father to sit outside the women’s room and send her in there by herself by the time she was five. Looking back, it must have been terrifying for Castle to let her go like that.

They arrived in the East Hamptons and Scarlett noted, “This looks like Fwankwin in the snow.”

“She means Franklin, Tennessee,” Ben explained. “And Brentwood.”

“Oh,” Alexis said. “Okay. You’ll like it here. Dad’s place is really nice and there’s lots to do… I think they love having Scarlett around.”

“I don’t know anybody who doesn’t,” Ben said, glancing at his daughter in the rearview mirror.

“I’m going to call Dad,” Alexis said, digging her phone out of her purse. She dialed, and Castle answered on the fourth ring.

“Hi, honey! How’s your drive?”

“We’re doing fine. We just got got to West Hampton,” she said.

“You’re doing okay in the snow?”

“The snow hasn’t been a problem,” she answered. “Well, we’re going to be there soon, do you want us to pick up lunch?”

“No, Kate’s making some pasta and her homemade red sauce.”

“Tell her to make sure she leaves some plain noodles for Scarlett. We’ll be hungry when we get there.”

“Oh, okay, good to remind us. See you in a few minutes.”

“Alright, bye Dad!”

At Alexis’ direction, they pulled into a long, secluded driveway with lots of large trees shading it. She watched Ben’s face as they rounded the curve and the house came into view.

The decorator hadn’t left a lot of outdoor decorations, but there were LED candles in the windows and a holly wreath on the door. The driveway had been shoveled clean. It looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell Christmas Painting. Ben’s jaw dropped at the sight. She smiled to herself.

“I didn’t know he had a house this nice,” Ben said.

“Yeah, he’s done pretty well for himself,” Alexis admitted.

“Scar, we’re gonna spend Christmas here, huh?”

They pulled into the snow-shoveled drive, where her father, stepmother, and grandmother had arrived earlier that morning. Her grandmother greeted them at the door. “Welcome!” she called. “Come in, come in! How was the trip?”

“Oh, we did pretty good with time. Scar, do you need to go potty?” Ben asked.

“Yes, suh.”

“I got her,” Alexis said, getting into the backseat to get Scarlett out. She took the little girl into the bathroom immediately, tugging down her jeans, tights, and panties, and put her onto the toilet.

“I ah-most didn’t make it!” Scarlett cried, relieved, as she started peeing.

“Yeah, you’ve got a lot of layers on,” Alexis agreed. Once she was done, she helped Scarlett with washing her hands and flushing the potty before going out to the house. Ben was bringing the suitcases in, and Castle and Kate were in the foyer.

“How was the trip?” her father asked, hugging Alexis. “Hi, Scarlett.”

“Hewwo.”

“What rooms are you putting them in?” Alexis asked.

“Um, Ben’s going to be in your grandmother’s room, and Scarlett’s going to sleep in your room, we set up the air mattress in there. Or you can move it to Ben’s room.”

“I’m staying in the guest house,” Martha announced.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Alexis said, taking Scarlett’s hand and escorting her up the stairs with Ben following. Alexis lead them down the hall to Martha’s usual room (at least when her son was here). “This is your room. Sorry it’s not facing south. Scar, do you want to stay in here?”

“Can stay I wif you?”

“Selling me out?” Ben cried.

“Yes, you may,” Alexis said, taking her hand to escort her down the hall to her bedroom.

“It’s pwetty!” Scarlett cried, entering the room with her baby-sitter.

“Wanna see the beach?” Alexis asked, going over to the french doors to the balcony. Scarlett ran over to the doors.

“It icy!” she cried.

“Yeah, it’s too cold to go swimming,” Alexis said. “But we can go out to the sand if we stay away from the waves.”

“Nice view,” Ben said from the doorway.

For a moment, she was terrified that her room seemed childish in decor to him. But he didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, Dad made sure I had a good view of the beach when he picked out my room,” she said as nonchalantly as possible.

Ben put down Alexis’ suitcase on the dresser and then went to the window for a better look. For a moment, she felt a chill run through her spine and her skin tingled, but she couldn’t pin-point why; he hadn’t touched her. He was her boss; she shouldn’t feel this way about him… right?

This was bad that they had the next four days together here.

“I see why you apologized,” he muttered. “Wow, some view!”

She blushed. “Yeah, well… let’s get some lunch downstairs.”

After lunch, they sat around the living room, enjoying the fire and the decorated Christmas tree in the corner. Scarlett was put down for a nap, and Ben came downstairs. “Let’s see how long she stays down, right?”

“I don’t think she’ll sleep much, with it being Christmas and all,” Alexis said.

“She can be a little shit,” Ben admitted. “She’ll be asking questions non-stop.”

“I remember Alexis being a ‘little shit’ too when she was that age,” Castle said, grinning. “She was so cute I couldn’t get mad for too long.”

“Your perfect child wasn’t so perfect?” Kate asked in mock-surprise.

“Surprise,” Alexis replied. They all laughed. “I had my moments where I was tired and cranky, I will admit. Dad was just really good at calming me down and getting me to go along with what he wanted me to do, or letting me think it was my idea in the first place.”

“I knew you well enough, I knew how to manipulate you,” he said. “I guess that’s an advantage to being a single parent: you don’t have to compete with the other parent to get your child to trust you.”

“Yeah, I’m trying to figure that out,” Ben muttered.

“I remember trying to pit my parents against each other,” Kate said, curled up in the armchair across from the loveseat. She raised her hand. “Grown up little shit right here.”

They all laughed.

“Why does that not surprise me?” Castle asked.

“Then that means there’s hope,” Ben joked.

“If you call me a functioning adult,” Kate kidded.

They spent the afternoon enjoying some mulled wine that had been cooking in the crockpot, and then Scarlett came downstairs with her blankie, bleary-eyed. It didn’t help that the adults were all a little buzzed, too. Ben, Scarlett, and Alexis decided to go on a walk out to the beach, despite how cold it was outside.

“You know how my parents used to joke with me when I was kid?” Ben asked. “My momma would say, ‘I wonder what the poor folks are doing’ at dinner or when we were having a good itme.”

“What does that mean?” Alexis asked.

“We were poor, that was the joke,” Ben explained.

“Oh,” Alexis said, feeling a little stupid. She didn’t notice the cold from the wind through her coat, she had just enough alcohol in her system. “I get it.”

“Yeah, I was sitting there in that living room thinkin’ just that, but I couldn’t say it,” he said. Scarlett had run ahead to the beach. “Daddy! Wookit!”

“Yeah?” he called back.

She held something up; a broke bit of a conch shell. “See?”

“Let’s see if we can find a whole one that washed up on the shore,” Ben said, walking ahead.

Alexis took a picture of them ahead of her, on her phone, Scarlett holding the shell up to him.

“Doubtful, this time of year,” Alexis called back to them.

After Scarlett had scoped out the beach, and felt the cold water for herself, she wanted to sit down in the cold sand. Alexis and Ben sat with her and watched the tide roll out while Scarlett entertained herself with the sand grains. “There’s nothing like living in a landlocked state,” Ben muttered.

“You’ve traveled, though, haven’t you?” she asked.

“Some. In the military. When I was deployed, I got to go to Capri, Italy on leave. If I could, I’d get a house on the beach and just walk up and down the shore daily. And write in a sunroom and… just raise my daughter. By myself.”

“But life happens.”

“Yeah. Don’t get me wrong, I love New York. I love the city over the suburbs and the country. But the beach is amazing, even if it is freezing cold.”

“You don’t like the country?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing out there. So much work to do outside of a career. It takes longer to get to your friends and then, culturally… there’s nothing, just more of the same.”

“You don’t like being surrounded by familiarity?”

“Nope. I like culture. I like to try different things and meet different people and learn about them and… I don’t know. I don’t like being around people just like me.”

“Me neither. I guess that’s part of why I stayed in New York for college. I like to be around people I can learn from. I guess I was kind of afraid to leave the city. You’re braver than me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because… I’m too chicken to join the military and fight in combat. And I’m too scared to leave my own backyard.”

“I look around New York and wonder why anybody would ever want to leave it.”

“Well, look around here. So much quiet. I had a hard time sleeping here sometimes, I’m so used to the city noise in the background.”

“That took me some time to get used to when we first got here. Listening to the city outside the open windows.”

“Imagine when you can’t think of a time when you didn’t know it,” she said, sighing. “Wait a second, does your building have AC?”

Ben chuckled. “Nope.”

“No wonder it’s so cheap,” she whispered.

He laughed again. “You know that I brought my banjo, right?”

“You did?”

“Yeah, it’s in my truck. I can go get it. Scarlett likes it when I play for her. Hey Scar, it’s gettin’ cold out here, wanna go inside and warm up by the fire?”

“Yeah!”

He dusted himself off and helped Scarlett up, and they went back to the house with Alexis. Once they were all warmed up and sitting by the fire, Ben got his banjo out of the truck and warmed up. Kate made Scarlett a snack in the kitchen of a peanut butter apple and some hot chocolate while Alexis got a cup of coffee. “Daddy an’ I ah gonna sing fah you,” Scarlett announced.

“You sing?” Kate asked.

“Yeah-”

“Yes, ma’am,” Alexis corrected.

“Yes, ma’am,” Scarlett corrected herself.

“What are you singing?” Kate asked.

“Um… I don’t know.”

“Are you done with your apple slices?” Alexis asked.

“I am.”

“Okay, let me wipe your hands off.” Alexis wiped her hands down with a wet paper towel and Scarlett ran into the living room to bug her father.

“She’s so funny,” Kate noted. “If I have a baby, I want her to have that exact same accent.”

“I think she’s starting to work on her speech, when she thinks about it, she’ll pronounce her r’s correctly,” Alexis said, wiping the counter off. “I’m going to miss the way she says it when she gets her pronunciation right.”

Scarlett ran into the kitchen. “We’ ready!”

Ben was sitting on the couch, and Scarlett ran into the room and made Kate and Alexis sit on the stone bench in front of the fireplace. “Right here?” Alexis asked.

“Yes!”

“What are you going to sing?” Kate said.

“Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros,” Ben said. “Scar, sit down.” She dove for the couch and sat down beside her daddy. “Ready?” he asked.

“Just a second, let me record this,” Alexis said, getting out her phone. She turned on the video. “Alright, let’s go.”

He started whistling, and she joined in. “Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my maw and paw, not the way that I do love you,” Scarlett belted out.

Alexis thought she was going to die of the cutes. That, and Scarlett sang more clearly than she spoke.

“Holy Moley, Me-oh-My, you're the apple of my eye, Girl, I've never loved one like you,” Ben answered.

She was surprised that Scarlett knew all the lyrics of the song and sang so clearly, but it was on her playlist they listened to. They obviously had done this before, because they took lyrics singing the verses, adorably. She glanced over at Kate, who was grinning, a hand over her mouth, trying not to giggle at how cute Scarlett was.

“Okay, how was dat?” Scarlett asked.

Alexis cut the video. “It was great.”

“Send it to me,” Ben said.

“I will! You’ve got to put that up on Twitter!”

“People follow me for book info, not home videos of me singing with my kid.”

“Daddy, we sing sometin’ ewse?” Scarlett asked.

“What do you wanna sing?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about some Old Crow Medicine Show?”

“Yeah!”

He started picking away at the banjo and they sang Let It Alone, another one of Scarlett’s playlist songs. After this song, Scarlett started to get bored, so Alexis taught her a few of the basics of Step Dancing, like posture and foot position.

“Okay, so I put the video up on my Twitter page, I caved to peer pressure,” Ben said.

“I’ll retweet it,” Alexis said, getting up her phone. “Hey, Scar, what are you wearing to the party tonight?”

“I tink… um… a wed dwess.”

“Why don’t we get you in the bath and get you ready?” Alexis suggested. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”

Alexis put her in the bathtub in her room and washed her hair so she could curl it. Alexis enjoyed this, taking care of Scarlett, as if she were her own. She had to admit to herself, the last school year had been tumultuous and she liked the idea of settling down and finding routine. She had been going out and enjoying the nightlife of New York City since she was fourteen-year-old. At twenty, almost twenty-one, it felt old and kind of silly. Once-in-a-while, it was fun, but not every weekend. And taking care of Scarlett never felt like work or a chore; she enjoyed it. So much so, that she questioned if she really wanted to put herself through the pressure of taking the LSATs and going to law school, committing herself to 60-80 hours a week of work for the next fifteen years, instead of starting a career out of college where she only had to work 40-50 hours a week. If she went down the path of law school, she’d miss so much of Scarlett growing up and would probably lose touch with her. She loved Scarlett and wanted to see her reach milestones in her life. When had she found this motherly side of herself? Alexis hadn’t really had much of a mother figure asides from her grandmother. She wasn’t sure.

She dressed Scarlett in the red corduroy dress with embroidered holly leaves and a white turtleneck and cream-colored tights, and then dressed herself for the Hanukkah party at her friend Tara’s family’s Hampton House. “What ah you weawing?” Scarlett asked as Alexis stripped out of her own clothes, and changed her bra.

“I’m wearing this one,” Alexis said, pulling the dressed out of the closet that was still in dry cleaner plastic.The dress she chose was a sparkly dark copper-sequined dress that came down to her knees, and a pair of black opaque pantyhose with high-heels that matched the dress.

“Oooh,” Scarlett whispered.

“You like it?” Alexis asked. She put on the strapless bra so that her brastraps didn’t show under the shoulders.

“I wuv it!” Scarlett cried.

“Thank you! I wouldn’t wear it if you didn’t like it,” Alexis admitted. Alexis put on some heavy eye-makeup and put her hair in hot rollers while Scarlett chatted with her, sitting atop the closed toilet seat. “Wanna wear some perfume?” she asked Scarlett, getting out her bottle of Coco Chanel Mademoiselle.

“Yeah!”

“Okay, put out your wrists like this,” she demonstrated, and she squirted a small amount of perfume on her wrists, which Scarlett immediately sniffed. “You like it?”

Scarlett nodded.

Alexis spritzed herself and there was a knock on the door. “Alexis?” her father asked, poking his head in the door.

“Hey, Dad,” she said. “We’re almost ready!”

“So are we. I’m going to start the car to warm it up.”

“Okay, let Ben know.”

“I will. You look very pretty, Scarlett.”

“Tank you!” Scarlett said proudly.

Alexis started taking the rollers out of her hair and pinned the front part back with a rhinestone comb and sprayed it down. She sprayed down Scarlett’s curls as well and then took her downstairs to get her into her coat. Ben came down the kitchen stairs. “Whoa… you two…”

“Daddy!” Scarlett ran up to him. “Do I wook pwetty?”

“You are so beautiful, sweetpea,” he said, picking her up to kiss her.

Alexis felt herself blush. She shouldn’t feel this way about her boss, right? Learn to take a compliment, Alexis, she thought.

“Who’s ready to go?” Kate called out, coming down the stairs, dressed in a dark red ¾ sleeve knee-length dress. “Your father’s on his way out from the wine cellar. We’ve got a few bottles of manischewitz we want to take.”

“I’m going to get Scarlett’s carseat out of my truck,” Ben said, getting his coat off the rack. “Miss Martha’s not going?”

“She’s got a party with friends of her own,” Alexis explained. “The Hirshbergs were second parents to me. Well, Ellen was. I’m best friends with her daughter Tara.”

“I know Tawa!” Scarlett announced.

“Yeah, you met her a few weeks ago,” Alexis said. “You’ll love them. They need their own reality TV show.”

“They do,” Kate agreed, applying her lipstick in the half-bath mirror.

“Come on,” Ben said to Alexis

The three of them went to his truck, and Ben got the carseat out. Alexis putting it into the backseat of the Jetta, and buckling Scarlett into the middle seat. Castle and Kate came out a moment later, he was carrying two bottles of wine. “Alright, who’s ready to spin the dreidel?” he called.

“What a dweidew?” Scarlett asked.

“It’s a top and game that Jewish people play on Hanukkah where you win chocolate coins,” Alexis explained.

“I wanna pway!” Scarlett announced as her father buckled himself into the seat beside hers. Alexis got in on the otherside.

She had to admit Ben looked amazing tonight: he was wearing a suit and tie, although it was a bit worn, and he seemed to keep that scruff of a beard only for warmth against the northeastern winds. “I bet those chocolate coins will be the only thing she’ll eat,” Ben joked.

“I already told Tara she’s a picky eater,” Alexis said. “She’s prepared.”

“Good,” he said. “I would be so embarrassed if she doesn’t.”

“She’s just a kid, Ellen won’t care,” Alexis said.

“Alright, Dad has the radio,” Castle announced from the front seat, turning up stereo. Kate and Alexis shouted in protest, but he sang along the whole way to the Hirshberg’s, off key.

At the Hirschberg’s house, Castle parked the car and they got out with the manischewitz.

“I’m gonna be honest with y’all,” Ben admitted as they rang the doorbell. “This is my first Hanukkah ever.” The door opened.

“Hi!” Tara cried. “Alexis! I’m glad you’re here! Hi, everybody! Come in! Hi, Scarlett!”

“Hi!” Scarlett replied. “What’s your name?”

Everyone laughed. “Scarlett, this is my friend Tara. You’ve met her.”

“Oh, yeah!”

“Here, Tara, this is for you, our dinner gift,” Castle, holding up the manischewitz as the starte taking off their coats. Tara hugged and kissed him. “Thank you for having us.”

“Thank you! It looks delicious! Maaaaahm!” Tara called. “The Castles are here!”

“Hello!” Ellen Hirschberg came through, a gaudy lady who put Linda Richman on Coffee Talk to shame. “There’s my Alexis! I missed you so much!” She came up to Alexis and hugged and kissed her, leaving a pair of burgundy lipmarks on her cheek. “You look so beautiful! Is this your little Scarlett? I’ve wanted to meet you!”

“Am I pwetty?”

“Oh my gawd,” Ellen cried. “You’re precious! You are so beautiful, sweetheart! You know that I almost named my little girl Scarlett, but changed my mind at the last minute.”

“Yeah? I almost named my daughter Tara,” Ben said.

“You must be Benjamin!” Ellen squealed, looking up at him. She reached up to cup his face. “Oh my gawd, Scarlett looks just like you!”

“Nice to meet you,” Ben said, blushing a little. Alexis melted.

“Would you get a load of this accent?” Ellen asked. “You sound just like Rhett Butlah! I need to tell you how much I love Gone With the Wind!”

“I love it, too,” Ben said.

“This is his first Hanukkah ever,” Kate interjected.

“Oi vey, nobody’s perfect,” Ellen scoffed. “Come in here with me, and tell me all about yourself!”

“I saw them singing on your Twitter page,” Tara said in Alexis’ ear. “It was so adorable, I retweeted it, and three people retweeted it beyond me. It’s almost got four-hundred views already!”

* * *

The next morning, Alexis woke up a little hungover from the manischewitz. Scarlett had gotten too cold on the air mattress, so she got in bed with Alexis during the night, and was a little space heater in the bed beside her. Alexis stroked her hair, listening to her deep breathing, and closed her eyes.

Man, she had been loud and unladylike when she was drunk on manischewitz. Thankfully, she hadn’t been so drunk she threw herself at Ben, but when they got drunk together, they laughed at some things and ignored everything around them. It hadn’t really struck her until the end of the night, Tara slipped an arm around her and stared at her for a long time. “Yes?” Alexis asked.

“Aren’t you with him?” Tara whispered into her ear.

“What? No! I’m his babysitter!” she responded.

“But you’d be so cute with him!” Tara whispered.

She thought about it sleeping there in bed. She felt tingly inside. This was torture, being in such close quarters with him between Christmas and New Year’s. She was pretty certain he didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him. She was going to make a fool of herself on some level if she didn’t squash these feelings out soon, and worse yet, she’d lose her baby-sitting job with Scarlett. But she didn’t remember feeling this way since Ashley. She had jumped into that relationship with Pi, but hadn’t really had those feelings for him. She had tried to fool herself into thinking she did, but she didn’t.

She closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth of the bed and giving back over to the grogginess. A sudden knock to the bedroom door woke her up. Talk about annoying. She opened her eyes, and Scarlett wriggled a little bit under the covers.

Maybe it wasn’t her door.

Then, it happened again. Alexis sat up, groaning. Was it her father? “Yes?”

The door opened and Ben stuck his head in. She cringed, being bed-headed and… oh shit, she wasn’t wearing a bra under her t-shirt. “Hey,” he said, sounding equally groggy, but more excited. She liked his mussed-up hair, she realized. “I just got over three hundred friend requests.”

“You’re kidding! Really?” she cried, wide-awake now.

“Yeah, and the video has over fifteen hundred views. Thank you so much for making me publish that to the web! People are buying and reading my book! This is exactly what my publisher wanted from me!”

“I’m so glad,” Alexis admitted. Scarlett whined and sat up. “Scarlett, it’s Christmas Eve!”

Scarlett tumbled out of the bed and ran to her father. “Daddy!” she pouted. Scar was not the best about waking up, normally.

“Ah, just wakin’ up. Come on, Scar, let’s get you ready for breakfast!”

They disappeared, and Alexis knew she needed to get up, now. It would be rude to sleep in while they were making breakfast for themselves as her guests. She got up and went to her bathroom to put on her bra and then a pair of socks and a hoodie, and brushed her teeth, she finally went downstairs. Ben was making coffee.

“Is that coffee? I need it!” she joked, reaching for the coffee mugs beside his head.

She realized she was in extremely close proximity to him, even though they weren’t touching, her cheeks burned. They met each other’s eyes and for a moment, Alexis honestly thought he was having the same feelings for her that she had for him; that it was okay to act on these feelings. But that lasted only a second. She pulled her arm away and broke the gaze. “No, you have the first cup, I insist, you’re my guest.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I got an email from my editor at Penguin. They’re ecstatic about the video going viral, it’s good, free press.”

“Well, that’s great,” Alexis said. “Why don’t we get a video of Scarlett doing something cute? She’s always cute anyway-”

“No, I’m not using my kid for my own publicity, that’s a crappy thing to do to her.”

“Aww, you’ve got ethics!” she tried to joke.

“Well, hopefully, I can figure this Twitter thing out and use it.”

“It’s really not that hard,” she said. “I can show you a lot you can do on there. Come on, let me show you.”


	8. 2nd Attempts at Christmas Traditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle (If you haven't figured it out, yet)!

Ben finished making cheese grits once everyone came down for coffee while Alexis was finishing the eggs. “This is something Scarlett will actually eat,” he said, noting the skillet of scrambled eggs.

“She’s not such a picky eater, she just doesn’t like weird spices or a lot of vegetables,” Alexis said, scooping eggs onto a plate for her. He put a small bowl of cheese grits onto the table in front of Scarlett with the eggs. She picked up a fork and started feeding herself.

“I think she’s getting better about what she’ll eat,” Kate said, setting down her coffee cup and went to the counter to get herself some breakfast. 

“So what’s on the agenda today?” Ben asked.

“We have a lot of Christmas parties to attend,” Castle said. “Mostly it’s just dropping by, saying hello, having a drink and maybe a cookie or two, and then rolling on to the next house.”

“Are we taking wine?” Alexis asked.

“Of course,” Castle said as she tried a scoop of cheese grits with her spoon. Alexis nodded to herself: she liked it. Ben was so happy she had put on a bra under her sleep-top, now. He could hardly handle her tits unbridled, but at least she was laying in bed when he realized it. That so many people followed him because he posted a cute video of his daughter singing on Twitter just astounded him. He was so thankful Alexis talked him into it. This was just what he needed to get Penguin off his back about publicity.

They sat down at the table and Scarlett was working on her plate. “Hey, good girl, are you going to eat everything on your plate?” he asked her.

“Yes, suh,” Scarlett replied, licking the grits off the back of her spoon.

“Is it okay we dress Scarlett in the same thing she wore at Thanksgiving?” Ben asked.

“Nobody’s gonna care,” Kate replied. “I don’t think anybody saw her.”

“You know, Ben, are you going to enroll her in Irish Step classes?” Alexis asked.

“That’s a great idea!”  Castle cried. “I’ve got some of Alexis’ old feis costumes in storage. Alexis started Step at a young age, I bet Scarlett could wear some of them.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Ben said, a little alarmed. 

“I’ve taught her a little bit in the last few weeks. I think she’d like it. Scar, would you like to do the Irish Step Dancing classes?” Alexis asked.

“I bet you were adorable,” Kate said. 

“I twy it,” Scarlett replied.

“I used to do Step as well,” Ben said. “That’s why Alexis is pressuring me to put Scarlett in classes.”

“Bridget would probably give you really reasonable rates,” Castle said. “Alexis was about four when I started her on step. She saw  Riverdance on TV and wanted to dance like that.”

“Yeah, I loved it,’ Alexis admitted.

He needed a break from sitting beside Alexis. He felt like a pervert for imagining what Alexis’ tits looked like, especially with her father sitting right there. But the thoughts kept on invading his mind, pervert thoughts of her performing sex acts for him. He didn’t want to think of her that way, but it was hard not to. The more he tried to not think about her, the more the thoughts harassed him. It was a losing battle, like when he had been a teenager.

His balls were tingling, sitting beside her. He scarfed the down the rest of his breakfast in record timing and chugged his coffee.

“I’m going to go take a shower. Scar, I’ll get you dressed when I get out,” Ben said, rising from the table.

“I can dress her,” Alexis volunteered. “The plaid dress? It’s in my room.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Ben said. “Scarlett, eat all your food, okay?”

“O-tay.”

He dashed up stairs and turned on the shower in his bathroom, locking the door. He needed some privacy if he was going to take care of business before the parties started. The shower spray ran hot, and he stripped out of his clothes. He groaned in satisfaction when the hot shower spray hit his back and relaxed the cramps out of his muscles. He turned down the hot water to cold to get Alexis out of his system. He hoped she didn’t know how much she got under his skin. Technically, she was so young, but she seemed so grown-up. But it was so, so wrong.

Once he had gotten all the gross feelings of wanting to seduce his babysitter out of his system, he turned the water back to hot and let himself warm up again.

He got out of the shower and dried off. He stared at himself in the mirror; he was a pervert for thinking about Alexis like that. He wasn’t sure he could be around her, really closely. He decided that after Christmas, he’d take Scarlett back to the city. Alexis could come back with her parents; driving with her to the Hamptons had made him feel closer to her than was professional. He got out his razor and shave gel.

* * *

The day of festivities went well: East and West Hampton were a “small town.” Everybody knew everybody else. Scarlett was young enough that she was able to play with the other children and not notice that her outfit was not designer or hand-made. Everyone had heard about Ben staying with the Castles, and the news that he was a writer, too, made everyone ask if Castle was mentoring him. The answer was no, but everyone seemed to think he was just saying that to hold up a front.

On his end, he saw nothing but extravagance: $2000 gingerbread houses that were miniatures of the houses he was in, hand-knitted stockings on the hearths with each member of the family’s names on them, flocked natural trees, professionally decorated, imported Nutcrackers from Russia, and real greenery and holly berries all over the houses. Most everyone was nice to him and Scarlett, for the most part. They came home for the afternoon so they could all get a nap in and sleep off the alcohol. Scarlett was getting cranky, since the nap happened later.

Ben felt a lot better when he woke up, but his underwear. He could hear Scarlett talking to Alexis down the hall; she was awake.

It was getting dark outside, which meant the bigger parties were starting. Ben dressed in a crisper white shirt, a black tie and his suit so he wouldn’t be so out-of place with these higher-ups. When he came out of his room, Alexis had dressed Scarlett in a white button-up shirt, a little red cardigan, and a navy blue shirt for the night. Scarlett came bounding out of Alexis’ room when he came out.

“Daddy!” she cried.

“Hi, sweetpea! You look pretty!”

“Tank you, you look nice, too.”

“Are you ready to party tonight?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Hi!” Alexis emerged from her bedroom in an even more beautiful dress than what she had worn last night: it was a black lace and sequin sheath that had a nude slip underneath it. For a moment, he thought her dress was completely see-through and his heart leap up his throat. It was just tight enough to cling to her curves and made her look so incredibly sexy, he thought he was going to faint just looking at her as she put on a pair of chandelier earrings. “Are we ready for tonight?” she asked.

“I am!” Scarlett announced. 

He looked up into her face. Her red hair had been curled into a loose bun at the side of her head, and her eye make-up was dark and sultry. She looked much older than twenty. “You look amazing,” he whispered.  Good enough to eat, he thought.

“What?” she asked, looking up.

“Um, nothing, I just said you look nice,” he said quickly.

“The Donaheys usually throw the best Christmas party,” Alexis said. “It’s usually you come dressed formally, but the music is the best. He’s a record producer, so he’s got an incredible music and sound collection in their house. Just wait.”

“Woud music?” Scarlett asked, going over to Ben. Ben picked her up.

“We’ll bring some earplugs to protect your hearing, sweetpea,” he said.

Castle and Kate came out of the master bedroom, and she was wearing an evening gown in dark purple, and Castle in a tux. 

“Okay, the car’s warming up, I’m going to go check on Mother and we’ll be going,” Castle said.

“Let’s all get our coats on,” Kate said, taking Scarlett’s little hand, guiding her down the stairs to the mudroom where the coats were.

Ben followed along in his truck with Scarlett in the backseat. The arrived, and it was a fancy two-story Hamptons-style house with valet parking. He got out of the car and get Scarlett out, not sure how to let the valet handle it. “Hey,” Alexis called, getting out of the car ahead of him.

“Sir?” the valet asked.

“Just give him your keys,” she said. “He’ll give you a token, you just hold onto that.”

He did as she said, and she took his arm. Ben wished she wouldn’t, she smelled so nice and looked so pretty in the faux-fur coat, but she lead them into the front door. Her grandmother had been announced, and then her parents, and when they came up to the door, the doorman asked their names as they took their coats.

“Hi, I’m Alexis Castle, and this is United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Benjamin Haversham of Nashville, Tennessee, and his daughter, Scarlett,” Alexis answered for him.

“Lieutenant?” the doorman asked. Alexis took his arm and he held onto Scarlett’s hand.

“Just a second,” Alexis whispered.

“Miss Alexis Castle and United States Marine Corps Lieutenant Benjamin Haversham of Nashville, Tennessee, and his daughter, Scarlett.”

“Okay,” Alexis said, tugging his arm.

They walked into the party. There was every cliche he had seen so far in the Hamptons: the over-priced gingerbread house, the replica of the one he had just entered, greenery explosion, and fairy lights. He felt a little shabby with these people, all in tuxes, and he was in a regular suit. But Alexis hadn’t let go of his arm.

“This way, don’t worry, I’ll introduce you to people. Scarlett can play in the kid’s room.”

They took Scarlett to the playroom and dropped her off. After he promised to come back hourly to check on her, he and Alexis started doing rounds at the party. She showed him how to remember people’s names very quickly with mnemonic devices and told him some of the gossip about different people between each drink they had to take breaks. They got drinks again, and the world was getting hazy from the alcohol.

A person dressed as Santa Claus came into the house and the kids came running out to see him. He even had a sack full of presents for them, expensive stuff: Scarlett walked away with a new Littlest Pet Shop Set, proudly. “Daddy, wookit!” she cried gleefully, showing him the box.

“That’s a big present,” Ben muttered. “Should she even be accepting it-”

“Yes,” Alexis cut him off. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Yes, she needs to accept it. The Donaheys will be so insulted if she gives it back.”

“I… I’m getting another drink. Something stronger.”

“Alright.”

He got another jack and coke, and when he turned around, Alexis was kneeling down beside Scarlett, who was busy playing with her new toy, educating her on what it was and what it did. When Alexis looked up at him, he felt it in the base of his stomach: she was his 80-year-old whiskey, something he’d crave until he had her, but never could.

Families started to leave once Santa Claus left for the night. Scarlett wanted to stay up all night, now. “Why don’t we dance?” Alexis asked as the song  On Fire by Switchfoot came over the sound system.

“Should I be the one asking you?”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” Alexis teased. “What ever happened to feminism and equality?” She took his arm and he walked with her out to the dance floor.

For a moment, the world ceased to exist: it was just him and this beautiful creature who smelled so amazing and sparkled and was so out of his league… He hardly remembered his dance training with the Harpeth Hall girls while he was in prep school at Montgomery Bell Academy.  He had to remember how to spin her and lead. But he didn’t care about what anyone else thought about them. For a moment, he felt like it didn’t matter that she was his baby-sitter for Scarlett. He had had too many jack and cokes. Why couldn’t he be with her?

The song ended, and an Irish jig started playing, Flogging Molly’s  Irish Pub Song.

Alexis’ face broke into a giant grin. “Ben! Listen!” she cried. “Come on!” She let go of him and pointed her right toe, and started doing the 1-2-3 dance move. 

Muscle memory took over for Ben, and his foot did a drum beat, and it was all downhill from there. He had forgotten the joy of dancing and how he didn’t have to think. He had decided to enlist in the Marines to forget the pain of losing both his parents, but why hadn’t he remembered Step instead. The dance floor cleared out and it was just him and Alexis, doing the Irish Step, people watching them. Alexis matched him step for step and he felt like a better dancer next to her.

He came to the conclusion: Alexis was magic.

* * *

That night, he was dizzy he was so tired from the alcohol. Alexis drove his truck home, and Scarlett fell asleep on the drive home. They woke her up by accident from carrying her up the stairs to Alexis’s room.

“I’ve got her pajamas right here,” Alexis said, getting them out of the bathroom. 

“Scar,” he said softly, tugging his baby’s dress off. “Come on, it’s time for bed.”

Scarlett whined in response and he got her tights off, too. 

“Do you need to go potty before bed?” Alexis asked her as she dressed her in her pajama top.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Come here,” Alexis said, picking her up and taking her to the bathroom. He listened to Alexis finish getting her ready to sleep. Ben slumped down on the bed and Scarlett came walking out, teeth brushed, her hair down, and in her pajamas, with Alexis. Alexis picked her up and put her under the covers. “The air mattress was too cold,” she explained.

How did she get so amazing with Scarlett? Scarlett trusted her like a child would her mother. And Alexis didn’t seem to mind taking care of her at all. Scarlett closed her eyes, and the deep breathing started almost immediately. “I love you, sweet girl,” he whispered, kissing her on the forehead. The bed was so comfortable, he felt like just closing his own eyes and falling asleep here.

“Ben,” Alexis said softly. “Ben, you need to go to your own room.”

He opened his eyes, and she was laying on the bed beside Scarlett, stroking her hair. “You are so amazing,” he murmured. He reached over to cup her cheek and her breath hitched.

“Oh…”

Her eyes closed at his touch, and ran the side of his thumb across her cheek and she finally took a breath in. This was a perfect moment for them.

“Ben…”

Wait a second. This was his babysitter. This was incredibly wrong and she was the person he paid to baby-sit his daughter. She was his employee and this was so incredibly wrong, these feelings were gross and impossible. “I’m sorry,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “I’m going to my own room, now. Goodnight, Alexis.”

Her eyes opened.

He got up from the bed, jostling Scarlett a little bit, and he left them behind in their own room.

* * *

Responding to fan letters, the discussion boards, and Tweets was becoming a full-time job for Ben, especially since Christmas, as was his most recent copy edits of  the Madrid Code . And then he was sent invitations for blog interviews and chats through his agent. He was incredibly busy, and calling Alexis to take care of Scarlett more than ever. He didn’t post a single picture or video of Scarlett since the song at Christmas in the Hamptons, but was teasing his fans with blurred-out pictures of the computer screen, telling them it was the final edits of  the Madrid Code . Yes, he did thank people who told him his daughter was adorable, but was vague when asked about her. He was not going to use his kid for publicity.

He was not sleeping much these days. He snapped at Scarlett a few times and instantly felt like the worst father in the world. He caught a few naps in his office at NYU, with the door locked, lest he look like a homeless person.

And then he’d come home to Alexis doing her homework and Scarlett was asleep.

“You’re sure you don’t need any help with your social media?” she asked, packing up her books.

He groaned, thinking of the two-hundred new questions he had to respond to from his fans just from today. She claimed she didn’t remember Christmas Eve, although she had been sober enough to drive him home. He was glad: touching her face had been so wrong. He remembered it out of sheer guilt. The alcohol from that party had loosened too much of his morals, he hadn’t had a beer around Alexis ever since. But she had proved useful: she found a load of research on the topic of what happened to Lee Harvey Oswald’s missing wedding ring at Columbia, the topic of his next book. Her research skills were amazing, she joked that’s what lawyers-in-training did. 

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’ve got a  lot  of tweets to respond to tonight,” he explained.

“Oh… well, how many?”

He got out his phone and pulled up his Twitter app. “Way too many.”

“Look, you don’t have to respond to everybody,” Alexis said. “Pick out the best questions and respond to them.”

“Then I’ll look like an asshole.”

“Just apologize that you can’t respond to everybody, but you promise you will read them.”

“Why did I think of that?” he asked, he joked. “How’s studying for the LSATs going?”

“Ugh,” she replied.

“I’m surprised you even have time to study for it when you did all that research for me,” he said.

“It wasn’t a problem, actually I found it kind of interesting, all the conspiracy theories. They don’t teach that kind of stuff in school. Speaking of which… can I read your next manuscript? I am doing your research!”

He laughed. “Of course,” he said, kissing her on the cheek without thinking.

“Oh!”

He was stunned at himself: he realized what he had just done. She clapped a hand to her offended cheek: his own cheeks burned.

“Um… I… I am so sorry, Alexis.”

There was a long, pregnant pause between the two of them. How had he been so careless? Her expression was blank shock. And finally, she said, “don’t be.”

She pounced forward and caught his lips in hers. His mind went blank for a moment and he kissed her back; it only felt natural. He knew he shouldn’t do this, but it just felt too right. He pressed her up against the wall, feeling her soft curves under her clothes, taking her coat off of her. She wriggled out of it, not breaking contact with his mouth. Once her arms were freed, her hands slid up into his hair, nail scraping his scalp, making him moan into the kiss. “Oh, God… Alexis,” he panted between kisses.

“I remember Christmas Eve,” she whispered through swollen red lips. 

“You said you didn’t,” he said, sliding his hands over the curve of her ass cheeks.

“I lied,” she admitted. He squeezed her ass so hard, he lifted her feet slightly off the floor, making her cry out softly, eyes closing. “I want you, Ben!”

“I’m taking you back to my room.”

He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, kissing him. He clumsily walked down the hall, half-blind, the only half of him that could see was her, her red hair, and the promise that they’d consummate something tonight. He bumped into the walls, and the doorway, kissing her madly. He managed to get her ass over the mattress and released her, the bed creaking under her weight. She grabbed the hem of her sweater and pull it over her head, revealing a semi-sheer pink lace camisole and a slight curved up her lips. He groaned slightly at the revelation of her cleavage and her hands pulled on his shirt that was tucked into his pants, her eyes determined as she unbuttoned his shirt.

He was drunk on her as she managed to get his button-up shirt open and he pulled it aside himself, and he realized he hadn’t unbuttoned his cuffs. She kissed his palm and undid that cuff, then the other. He eagerly tossed the shirt off and then pulled his undershirt off over his head. She stood up from the bed and kissed on his shoulder. “I love your tattoos.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. They’re so sexy, I’ve wanted to see all of them.”

“Are you going to surprise me with any?”

“No. None yet.”

“Unicorn!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

He tugged the camisole off her to reveal a light pink t-shirt bra with padded cups. He felt his pants tightening. “Christ, it’s hard to have sex up here in the winter. Too many layers!”

“Welcome to New York!” she giggled, unbuckling his belt, whipping it out of the loops. One thing bothered him: was experienced was she?

“Lex,” he said softly. “You’re not…”

“I’m not what?”

“You’re not a virgin are you?”

“No!” she looked offended at that question.

“I just want to be careful with you,” he muttered, cupping her face. “I’d never hurt you.”

He kissed her hard this time, and her eyes darted downward. “Ben… do you have a condom?”

“Of course.”

“Good, I’m not on the pill right now.”

Her hand grazed the bulge growing in his pants, and he groaned at the sensation. “Alexis,” he moaned, tossing his head back. He felt his member stiffen at her touch. She obviously was not a virgin, that had been a stupid question. She unsnapped her bra in the back, and shed it, making him groan even harder again at the sight of her bare breasts, her light pink nipples turning hard and blush-pink in the cold air. “I don’t think I can stand up much longer,” he admitted.

“Okay,” she said, sitting down on the mattress, unbuttoning his pants and slowly lowering the zipper.

“You’re killin’ me,” he whispered. She tugged his pants and his shorts down, he felt the pressure of his pants relieved as a small gasp coming out of her mouth. 

“I wasn’t quite prepared that,” she whispered, gazing up into his eyes, grinning in wonder. He blushed, but didn’t say anything, and pushed the last of his clothes off down to his ankles and stepping out of them. All that was left was her jeans and whatever she was wearing underneath them. He unbuttoned them, and discovered a pair of thermal tights underneath. Once he got her boots off, he made quick work of getting her jeans off, but had to work at getting her tights off. She lifted her hips to help him with them, but she was wearing a light pink lace, low-rise thong underneath. He groaned and kissed the waistband of her panties, and could smell the musk scent of her arousal. A low moan escaped her lips, and he slipped his thumbs under the pink lace and tugged down as she lifted her hips. He could see the goosebumps cross her skin and she sighed. He got the lacy scrap off over her feet, and she was now naked beneath him. 

He took the sight of her in, despite how dim the light was in the room. She had just the right amount of curves, what he preferred. He didn’t like women with bones poking out of their skin.

“You’re perfect,” he told her. “Absolutely perfect, Alexis. I don’t know where to start.”

She propped herself up on her elbows, her breasts jiggling just slightly in the dark with her movement. “It’s fine,” she said, and sat up, scooting further up on the bed. “Just lay down next to me.”

She laid down with her head on one of the pillows, and climbed onto the bed next to her and pulled her close. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered in her ear, kissing along her neck, feeling her racing pulse while smelling the sweet honeysuckle scent of her hair. “I am so lucky to be with you.” He pressed her against himself, but she pressed a hand to his chest and paused.

“Alexis?”

“Ben… I quit.”

“What?” he lifted his head from her neck.

“I quit as your babysitter. I want this too much.”

“We’ll deal with it tomorrow morning.”

“Good.”

He cupped her breast and his thumb sought out her nipple, brushing it. “Ben!” she cried out.

“Yeah, baby?” he asked, right before he took her nipple right into his mouth. She writhed underneath him, and he had every intention of exploring her body with his mouth.

“Oh, yes!” she moaned, her legs slipping around his thighs. She was so warm…

He trailed kisses down her ribcage and over her stomach, pausing to swirl his tongue around her belly button. She trembled underneath him, practically mewling.

“Honey?” he whispered, sliding a hand down the inside of her thigh.

She moaned something that sounded like a  yes .

“You want me to keep going?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’re okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He slid a hand into those hot, wet folds, and thought he’d die at how good she felt. She was still tight and his hand stroked her clit through the coarse red hair. She cried out, and he felt her walls contract around his fingers. A surprised gasp escape her lips: she just came on his hand. 

“Oh…” she whispered, catching her breath. “I didn’t know… I didn’t think that was… possible!”

“I’d do that for you everytime,” he promised. He wondered if she had ever had an orgasm with a man before, while struggling with the need to taste her off his fingers. Instead, he climbed her body and pressed a kiss to her breathless lips, her fingers tangling in his hair again. When he pulled away from the kiss, her eyes opened and searched his, his cock straining against her leg. “Just a second.”

He rolled over and opened up his nightstand drawer, locating a small stash of condoms beside his 9mm Glock and the magazine cartridge. He rolled over with the condom in hand, tearing the little gold envelope with his teeth, getting the rubber out. He put the condom on, and rolled over between her legs. She was wet and ready to go, as he could feel every curve of her body against his, laying on top of her. Her legs opened up a little more to accept him, and he carefully positioned the head of his cock at her entrance. 

“Oh, Ben…” she whispered, her fingers drifting up the nape of his neck, making him shiver. “I’ve waited so long for this.”

“Me too,” he murmured, kissing along her neck. She was too tight for him to enter, she cried out when he tried.

“Stop! Just a second,” she said, her hands traveling between them. He lifted his torso off her and her hands slipped between her legs, and she held herself open for him. “Now, try.”

He pushed into her, and she was indeed tight and hot.

“Fuck, you are so hot,” he groaned, feeling her shudder.

“Shit,” she hissed. He began thrusting in and out of her, and her arms encircled him again. They moved together as one, each of his thrusts obliterating his mind for every gasp and mewl that came out of her mouth. She felt like heaven; it was like the peace of being underwater, his mind clearing. She built him up to a frenzy, and surprisingly, they came together, her hips bucking slightly. His mind blanked out, and his world went blank.

For this moment, Alexis was everything to him.

She was amazing. Her opened his eyes, seeing her face reddening in the darkness, her lips and face raw from kissing. He cradled her head, kissing her gently. 

They laid there in the bed, enjoying the post-coital bliss until the chill of the cold air in the apartment got to be too much. “I’m cold,” Alexis whispered, sitting up. “Are you?”

“Yes,” he admitted, sitting up with her. They pulled the covers back and settled in under the covers, which wasn’t much better.

He wasn’t sure what to say to her at this moment, holding her. Maybe they didn’t need to talk. She stroked his hair and he buried his face inbetween her breasts.

“I need to pee,” she finally sitting up, kissing him on the cheek. “Be right back.”

She slipped out of the bed and put on her sweater, slipping out of the room. He groaned and closed his eyes, not sure he could imagine their first time being any better. He rubbed the sockets of his eyes with the heel of his palms, sighing in relief. She was beyond his greatest expectation and-

There was a suddenly yelp and a door slam.

“A-wexa?” 

Shit.

He jumped out of bed and grabbed his shorts. He had honestly thought Scarlett would sleep through the night, foolishly. The door to his room was slowly shoved open right as he got his shorts on, and Scarlett stood there, her blankie draped over her shoulder, and a quick sob escaping her lips. ”Daddy!” Scarlett sobbed.

“Come here, sweetpea,” he said, picking her up carefully. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“I- I- why aren’t you weawing any cwothes?” she sobbed; her pajamas were wet from the waist down; shit, she had wet herself.

Alexis appeared in the doorway, tugging her sweater down over her legs. “Scarlett, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to slam the door in your face,” she apologized. “You just surprised me, that’s all.”

“I just wanted to go potty,” Scarlett whispered.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Alexis apologized. Ben flipped on the lights.

“We just had an accident. It’s alright, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re gonna get you cleaned up and back in bed, alright?”

Alexis side-stepped the door as Ben took her to the bathroom and set her down on the floor, flipping on the lights. 

“Did you wet the bed?” he asked.

Scarlett shook her head no and ran the bath. Good, he didn’t have to clean that up. 

“Come on, let’s get these wet clothes off,” he said, tugging her pajama pants off, tossing them and her panties in the sink. Once his daughter was naked, he placed her into the tub to get her bathes and washed off. He was freezing. “Alright, I’ll be right back.”

He got up, turning off the water, but was stopped short by Alexis, who was fully dressed, save for her boots. “I’m going to go home,” she said.

“You’re not going to spend the night?”

She shook her head. “It was fun, but… I’m kind of expected at home. Is she going to be okay?”

“She’s fine, just needs a bath. She didn’t see anything.”

“Thank God!”

“I forgot to lock the door. Look, I’m freezing, I’m going to get dressed.”

“I can see myself out,” she said. He guided her back away from the bathroom door and kissed her.

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’m late to get home anyway,” she admitted. “Call me tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I will.”


	9. 1st Attempts at Dating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle.

Alexis felt like she was flying as she walked home. Damn, if somebody had told her how much Pi sucked as lover, she’d have ditched him faster. Well, she wasn’t that heartless. Sex had been painful, then fun, then the novelty and thrill wore off with him. She hope this didn’t happen with Ben. Hoping that Ben did want to continue things with her… oh damnit, she had just quit her job so she could fuck Ben in a moment of passion and weakness. But it had been worth it. 

She took the subway back to TriBeCa. It was pretty quiet tonight. She tucked her purse under her arm and took a seat with her messenger bag in her lap. She probably would have been better off taking a shower after sex to get the post-sex smell off of her, but underneath it, she could smell Ben’s cologne, or whatever he wore. She lifted the neckline of her camisole to take a wiff off of it, and grinned to herself: it was there. His scent was on her skin, and it made her tingly all over, all the things he had just done with her. The idea that this was a one-time thing darkened her spirits: she was protective enough of her body that when she had sex, she wanted it to be while in a relationship, not just fucking men. She couldn’t go through men like nail polish, she needed a commitment before she had sex all the time with one. She knew men weren’t very good about that; she wasn’t sure where Ben fell on the scale.

Her train arrived at her stop, and she got off, noticing the clock for once; it was well past midnight. Ben never kept her out this late, normally. She felt a little guilty as she rounded the corner to her father’s apartment building.

She waved at the night time doorman and took the elevator up, hoping she could be as quiet as possible.

She carefully unlocked the door to the loft, seeing the timers hadn’t gone off with the lights. She shut the door as silently as possible, all she could think about was that orgasm, the absolute pain of Ben entering her, and then the pleasure, how careful he had been. She took her scarf off and hung up her coat in the coat closet, and right as she turned around to pick up her bag, a tall figure blocked the foyer entrance. “Dad!” she shrieked, surprised.

“Alexis, where have you been?” he cried, looking aggravated. “I got no call, no text, no email, nothing! Usually you tell me when Ben doesn’t come home until late!”

“I… I stayed late, that’s all. I thought you could handle it,” she said, embarrassed. She certainly did not want to tell her father she had just had sex for the first time in over a year. He liked to pretend that Pi had never happened, and she was still his little girl, and sex had never come into the picture for her. She personally wished the entire relationship with Pi had never happened, too, but she was constantly reminded when he sent her emails and private messages over Facebook.

“I was so worried! You know this is a big city-”

“With the lowest crime rate,” she rolled her eyes. “How many murders happened in Manhattan in 2013? I don’t know, less than 500?”

“Four-hundred and seventeen,” he said, grimacing. 

“Dad, I’m fine. I’ve got my mace, the subways aren’t that bad with crime, I’m good.”

“Honey, regardless, you’ve got to keep me updated on what’s going on in your life,” he said. “I was up all night, terrible scenarios were running through my head! This is not a hotel, you can’t just come and go as you please. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for you for you to let me know why you’re running late-”

“I’m turning twenty-one in a few weeks,” Alexis said, exasperated. 

“Castle?” a groggy voice asked. Kate came out of the master bedroom in her pajamas. “Alexis! I’m so glad you’re home! Where were you?”   
She was a little insulted that her father and his wife were treating her like some little kid that had to check in every time she went out. She had just had sex, for heaven’s sake, like an adult! The last thing she wanted was to be treated like a child right after. “ I was at Ben’s ,” she growled. 

Kate took a step closer to her and sniffed, almost imperceptibly.

“I’m going to bed, now,” Alexis said, picking up her messenger bag and climbing the stairs. 

In her room, she turned on the lamp, and took off her boots. She sat down on her bed, and sighed in relief. She could be alone with her memories of sex with Ben. 

There was a soft knock on the door. “Alexis?” Kate called softly.

“Come in.”

The door opened and her stepmother was standing there. “Tell me the truth, did you have sex tonight?”

“Kate!” Alexis cried, horrified. Then, she started laughing. “Yes, I quit. And we had sex. It was amazing.”

Kate gasped and sat down across from her on the bed. “How was it?” she asked eagerly.

“I’m not telling you!”

“Come on, who else are you going to tell? You have to spill it!”

“It was… Okay, I don’t want you to think I’m a giant slut, but it was really good. I’m waiting to see if he calls me.”

“See, I knew it was going to happen. I knew- I saw it. Everybody who came to the Hamptons with us at Christmas did.”

“Was it that obvious?”

“You were always with him,” Kate said. “And Scarlett loves you. You take care of her like she’s your own daughter. He’s always checking you out, too, I saw him doing it a few times. It was so obvious on Christmas Eve when you were wearing that that lace dress with the nude slip underneath-”

“I thought it was a beautiful dress, that’s why I bought it-”

“Oh, get real!” Kate laughed. “You wore that for a reason! I thought he was gonna cream his pants when he saw you in that!”

“Well, creamed something tonight!”

They both laughed. “Is he hung?”

She nodded, blushing. “We got caught.”

Kate’s jaw dropped in surprise. “Scarlett walked in on you?”

“No, not quite ‘walked in’ on us, but she… kind of… I’m sure she’s going ask why we both had our clothes off when she wakes up in the morning. She wet her pants because she was trying to get into the bathroom and I was already in there, and I slammed the door in her face out of panic, and she peed all over herself. I felt so bad, but he was giving her bath while I was leaving. He asked me to stay.”

“And you didn’t?”

“I knew Dad was waiting on me. I am so happy he didn’t call me and demand to know where I was. And then he ambushed me at the door just now, like I was in junior high or something. Ugh, embarrassing.”

“You’d be worried too. We’re adults, we have work in the morning, kid.”

Alexis yawned. “I wonder how Scarlett’s going to take it when she finds out I quit last night.”

“Well… maybe you should talk to her. It might be a good idea.”

“Hmmm…” Alexis hummed. “I’ll see what Ben says. When he calls me.”

“I can see you’re getting tired. I’m going back to bed. Just use a condom. Everytime.”

“I will. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

* * *

Ben’s sheets still smelled a little bit like Alexis’ perfume: citrus, rose, and patchouli, and a little bit of vanilla. She was still on his mind as he woke up the next morning to his alarm clock. This was his morning he got to sleep in a little bit, until seven. He got out of bed and took a shower. After his shower, while he had a towel wrapped around his hips and his hair was wet, he peeked into Scarlett’s room to see that she was still asleep in her bed. Good.

He shaved and brushed his teeth and got dressed before waking Scarlett up.

“Scarlett? You’re gonna be a big girl and get up by yourself?” he asked, poking his head into the room.

Scarlett moaned and flopped over in bed.

“I want you to get up and get dressed by yourself. I’m gonna make breakfast.”

She sat up and glared at the bedspread.

“When you’re ready to eat, come in dressed for the day,” he said, leaving her in the room. She earned the title of ‘little shit’ in the mornings. He went into the kitchen and started on some scrambled eggs. Scarlett came out, dressed for school in her beloved rainbow hoodie that she was probably going to outgrow by spring, and a pair of black leggings with white hearts on them. He set the plate of eggs down in front of her.

“Daddy, what you do wif A-wexa?”

“Last night?” he asked, surprised she remembered.

“Uh-huh.”

He sighed, blushing. “Well, Alexis and I… um…”

Scarlett managed to get a forkful of eggs into her mouth.

“We kind of um… we kind of like each other.”

“I wike her.”

“Well, it’s… I like her a special way and she feels the same back for me. It’s different from how you like her.”

“Wike how the Pwince wiked Cindahwew-wa?”

“Yes, baby, kind of like that.”

“Why you take off you cwothes?”

Shit, he thought. “I um… baby, how do I explain this…? Well, sometimes, when you like someone in a special way, you um…” He groaned to himself, trying to come up with the words. He never wanted to be dishonest with his daughter, trick her, or outright lie. “You practice making babies with them.”

Scarlett’s eyes narrowed and she frowned. “You said it was da stohk!”

“Shit,” he muttered, mentally face-palming. “Sweetpea, the stork brings the baby, but to make the baby… it’s something really private that only adults do.”

“I wanna know.”

Shit, shit, shit… “...about the stork?”

“No! How da baby is made!”

“Well, honey… that’s not something two people do in front of another person.” Well, not often. “It’s really private. You have to take your clothes off.”

“Gwoss! Then why you do it?”

“I um…” How did he explain it? “It feels nice. Really nice. But only grown-ups do it.”  I hope she doesn’t do it until she’s at least twenty-five, he thought. But of course, Alexis wasn’t even twenty-one, yet, he was a giant hypocrite since he lost his virginity himself at age sixteen. He honestly thought the sex talk wasn’t going to happen until she was at least eight. “But you don’t want to have a baby every time, so you practice instead.”

“Is dat how you got me?”

“Yes, actually, Scarlett. Your mommy and I were practicing and… we kind of got a little careless and accidentally called the stork, but we  wanted you when we found out the stork was coming, so it all worked out.” 

“So dere’s no stohk comin’?”

“No. Well, I’m pretty sure there’s not. I don’t know that I could afford another baby right now, I want you to be my only baby. But, see… I want to be special friends with Alexis, too. So, can you give us some privacy when we shut the door to my room? We won’t do that until after you go to bed but… Scarlett, do you understand what it means to knock on the door?”

“Why?”   
He and Scarlett usually just walked in and out of rooms. Yes, he’d shut the door to his room and the bathroom (although he was pretty certain she had never seen him completely naked), but he didn’t think anything of just opening the door to Scarlett’s room. She walked into wherever she wanted to go, no big deal in their house. There wasn’t a lot of privacy or need for privacy on her part, yet. She usually saw him in his shorts with his shirt off when it was hot in their apartment, and he still bathed and dressed her, so nudity meant nothing to her. She was too small to feel arousal, he hoped. “Honey, that means letting someone know you want to come in, making sure they’ve got their clothes on.”

“Why? I see you an’ A-wexa nakey.”

He sighed: he was going to have to use the lock on his door when he took Alexis back to his room. Alexis had shared a room with her at Christmas, and had probably taken her clothes off in front of Scarlett a few times. Maybe Scarlett was too young to understand knocking and privacy, yet. “Look, forget knocking. You don’t have to do that.”

Scarlett seemed to lose interest, and the climbed down from the booster chair. “I done!”

“Okay, sweetpea, let’s brush your teeth.”

He finished getting her, and himself, ready for the day, and bundled her up in a coat to take her outside. When he locked the door, he discovered a flyer taped to the door about the tenant’s association meeting: they really were trying to get the residents to assemble because the co-op-favoring was going strong.

He dropped Scarlett off at daycare and took the subway to his office for office hours. He only hoped she didn’t bring up his adventure with Alexis from the night before… speaking of which, Alexis quitting last night kind of left him in the lurch. He sent her a text:

You know, you quitting kind of left me in the lurch .

He wasn’t expecting her to respond quickly, but she did.

I have no intention of leaving you without someone to watch Scarlett on Thursday. I’ll be there, don’t worry about paying me… in money. : )

He grinned, seeing the winking emoticon. 

I’ll save that money for a new babysitter so I can take you out on a real date. He texted back.

I’d like that, she responded.

He knew she’d ask where this was going, and he wasn’t sure, personally. He wanted to start something with her. It couldn’t be sex after he came home to her; he needed to treat her like a lady, make her feel special. 

He thought about the things Alexis liked that he knew about: music, fencing, violin, books (of course), cooking, and painting. She was also a nerd, he knew she liked zombie movies. Zombies were a no-go with Scarlett so far, she scared easily, and he certainly didn’t want Scarlett running into his room in the middle of the night. He knew that he’d be taking Scarlett on dates with Alexis, if she wanted a relationship. He knew what their first date should be.

What are you doing tonight? he texted her.

* * *

Alexis pulled her dress over her head and went to the mirror. She hated first dates. Not because she didn’t like Ben, but because she was nervous. This was stupid. She had gone out with him before, how was this really different? She knew Scarlett was coming along, that was a buffer, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a buffer with him.

Her reflection in the mirror was a little pale, but the plum color of the dress set off her red hair so that it was glowing in the hot rollers. Too bad she looked kind of pasty. It would help if she knew where they were going. She sorted through her make-up bag and got out some concealer.

Once she had her hair out of the rollers and styled, she put on her ballet flats and went downstairs.

“You look nice,” her father said as she came down the stairs. “Where are you going?”

“Um…” She had never lied to her father. Maybe she had only told partial truths, but she never outright lied. “I, um… I’m going out with someone.”

“You are?” he asked. “You know I don’t like you going out with boys I don’t know.”

“That’s the thing, this isn’t a boy, I’m going out with a full-grown man.”

“What? Do I know him?”

“Dad, I’m an adult, too, now. I think it’s okay if I date someone for a while before I introduce him to you.”

Her father looked a bit miffed at that. “So you’re not going to tell me what’s up or where you’re going? For safety’s sake?”

“He’s taking me out for a surprise,” she said. “I’ll have my phone on me.”

“I don’t like this, it’s not safe, I don’t know who you’re going out with-”

“She’s in college, Castle,” Kate said, coming out of the bedroom in yoga pants and a hoodie. “This is part of being in college and growing up; she goes out with people you don’t know.”

She was surprised Kate had her back. “What-” her father spluttered.

“Castle,” Kate said, picking up a book off the coffee table and sitting down in the recliner. “She’s an adult. She’s going to be twenty-one in less than a month.”

“But-”

“Honey, do you really think I made my father meet every guy I went out on a date with before I went out with him after the age of eighteen?” Kate asked, smirking.

Alexis mouthed  Thank you in Kate’s direction. “I’ll be home by eleven.”

She grabbed her coat and scarf and went downstairs.

Ben was waiting at the corner bodega with Scarlett. “Hey,” Alexis said, smiling.

“You look really beautiful,” he said, hugging her and kissing her on the cheek.

“Hi!” Scarlett cried.

“Hi, Scar,” Alexis said, kneeling down to kiss her. “So where are we going?”

“Around the corner,” Ben said. “Just trust me.”

“Okay,” she said.

She took his arm and Scarlett’s hand. “We go to da booksto’!” Scarlett cried.

“Thanks for selling me out, Scar,” Ben laughed.

“Barnes and Nobles?” Alexis asked. She was excited; it was thoughtful. Most of the time, since she had been in college, men wanted to wine and dine her or go to a bar, either of which would work with a small child. It was sweet and imaginative that he wanted to take her to a bookstore. “I haven’t been there in a few weeks!”

“That was my grand plan,” he said, slipping his hand into hers.

“I love it,” she said. “It’s thoughtful. And… It’s sweet. I want to go. Really, I do. Take me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, please.”

They took a stroll to the Barnes and Noble around the corner. Scarlett was excited to walk inside, but before they went into the shelves, Ben wanted to get some drinks at the Starbucks cafe, first. Alexis asked for a decaff latte and he got a hot chocolate for Scarlett, and a decaff for himself. Scarlett wanted to look at all the mugs and items waiting in the impulse buy. “I want dis one!” Scarlett said, picking up a pink travel mug.

“We’re not buying things tonight,” she said. “If you’re good, you might get it.”

“The drinks will be out in a moment,” the barista said.

“I want a cup!” Scarlet complained.

“You’ve got cups at home. We’re gonna get a hot chocolate in a moment,” Ben said, picking her up and taking a seat with Alexis at a small table. “Okay, we need to discuss what we’re going do for Alexis’ birthday.”

Alexis felt a glowing grin claim her face. “So we’re going out for my birthday?”

“If you don’t already have plans.”

“I’ll have to tell all my other boyfriends,” she teased.

Ben laughed. 

“Actually, the night before, my father wants to take us all out to a family dinner,” Alexis said. “I was planning on going out for my first legal drink at midnight. My parents don’t want to miss my first time completely trashed within the legal limits. I wish I could take you along, but… we need a babysitter. Maybe you can come to the dinner.”

“Order for Ben?” the barista called.

“I’ve got it,” Ben said, sliding Scarlett out of his lap so he could stand.

“I don’t know what to get you,” Scarlett said while Ben got the drinks.

“For my birthday? Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you color a picture for me? I’ll hang it up in my room,” Alexis suggested. “That’s what I want for my present.”

Ben came over with the drinks. “I think this the latte, and this one is the hot chocolate, and this last one is mine,” he said, setting the drinks over the table top.

“Mmm!” Scarlett cried, getting a sip of her drink.

“Why don’t we take a trip to the children’s section?” Ben asked. “We always have to go through there and play with all the toys.”

“I love the children’s section!”

They walked through the sections, and certain books caught her eye. “Scarlett, walk!” Ben commanded while she tried to run ahead with her cup of hot chocolate. “I have more fun playing with the toys than she does.”

“I do, too!” Alexis admitted. 

Scarlett found her way to a caterpillar toy and held it up. “Daddy! What dis?”

“That’s a caterpillar. It turns into a butterfly.”

Scarlett’s enthusiasm and curiosity about the toys matched Ben and Alexis. Before Alexis knew it, it was almost eight o’clock and their Starbucks cups were empty and they had gravitated over to the children’s books.

“This is where Dad’s had a few books signings” Alexis said. “They have enough room in this section for them here, they can move the children’s bookshelves much more easily and set up folding chairs. I’m quite familiar with this area of the bookstore. Scarlett, wanna read a story?”

“Yeah!” Scarlett cried. Alexis took her hand and lead her over to the read-aloud picture books. They picked out a book and Alexis sat down to read to her. Scarlett took the opportunity to sit down in her baby-sitter’s lap and look at the pictures, but Ben disappeared.

As Alexis finished reading the picture book to Scarlett, Ben arrived, holding something:  Rausch der Verwandlung by Stefan Zweig. He grinned at them. “Okay, since you do speak German, I ordered this for you, and what do you know, they had it in stock.”

“Oh, Ben!” Alexis cried. “I love it! Thank you! I’m going to read this once I’m done with my school reading this week, okay?”

“Good, I can’t wait to hear what you think of it,” he said. “I read this book in English, we can talk about it then.”

“Definitely,” Alexis agreed.

“It’s getting late, and I need to take Scarlett home, it’s past her bedtime.”

“So the date’s over?” Alexis asked, accepting the book. The receipt was still in the front cover.

“Unfortunately. The woes of dating a single father,” he joked. “Scar, tell Alexis goodbye.”

“Bye,” Scarlett frowned, and hugged Alexis.

“I’ll walk you both out,” Alexis said as Ben helped her to her feet. “I had a good time.”

“I did, too,” Ben said. “Did you like going out, Scarlett?”

“Yes, Daddy, I did!” Scarlett said. “One moah stoh-wee?”

“When we get home.”

“Awexa gonna read it?”

“No, she’s going to her house.”

“Can I get a kiss goodnight, Scarlett?” Alexis asked.

“You wead tonight!” Scarlett pouted.

“I can’t! I’ve got to get home,” Alexis said. “Can I get a hug?”

Scarlett begrudgingly held open her arms and gave Alexis a hug goodnight. “What dat?”

“What’s what?” Alexis asked.

“Daddy, you book!” Scarlett pointed.

Ben saw what she was pointing at: his book was facing out on the bestseller display wall. He did a double-take.

It was  the New York Times  Bestseller list for the week: in the #20 spot was  A Murder in the Capitol .

“When did this happen?” Ben cried, picking up his book.

“Sunday,” the salesgirl said. “We were just a little late in getting the display for the week up.”

“Congratulations!” Alexis cried, throwing her arms around his neck in a hug. “Ben! This is amazing! You made it to the best-seller List!”


End file.
